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Emma Lazarus
30 quotes
“The Jewish problem is as old as history and assumes in each age a new form. All the magnanimity, patience, charity, and humanity, which the Jews have manifested in return for centuries of persecution, have been thus far inadequate to eradicate the profound antipathy engendered by fanaticism and ready to break out in one or another shape at any moment of popular excitement.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Jewish Problem", The Century Magazine, vol. 25, no. 4 (February 1883), p. 603
“The word "Jew" is in constant use, even among so-called refined Christians, as a term of opprobrium, and is employed as a verb, to denote the meanest tricks.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou art a giant altar, where the Earth Must needs send up her thanks to Him above Who did create her.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Clifton-House, Niagara Falls, Canada (August 24, 1865)
“The burning noon sends floods of molten gold, The calm night crowns thee with its host of stars, The moon enfolds thee with her silver veil, And o'er thee e'er is arched the rainbow's span, — The gorgeous marriage-ring of Earth and Heaven. While ever from the holy altar grand Ascends the incense of the mist and spray, That mounts to God with thy wild roar of praise.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sweet empty sky of June without a stain, Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain, That each dark copse and hollow overfills.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here, where the noises of the busy town, The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not, We stand and gaze around with tearful awe, And muse upon the consecrated spot. No signs of life are here: the very prayers Inscribed around are in a language dead; The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent That an undying radiance was to shed.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Touro Synagogue, Newport, RI (July 1867)
“What prayers were in this temple offered up, Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth, By these lone exiles of a thousand years, From the fair sunrise land that gave them birth!”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains, — The exiles by the streams of Babylon.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The weary ones, the sad, the suffering, All found their comfort in the holy place, And children's gladness and men's gratitude 'Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise. The funeral and the marriage, now, alas! We know not which is sadder to recall; For youth and happiness have followed age, And green grass lieth gently over all.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet, With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod. Take off your shoes as by the burning bush, Before the mystery of death and God.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh deem not dead that martial fire, Say not the mystic flame is spent! With Moses' law and David's lyre. Your ancient strength remains unbent. Let but an Ezra rise anew, To lift the Banner of the Jew!”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Spirit is not dead, proclaim the word, Where lay dead bones, a host of armed men stand! I ope your graves, my people, saith the Lord, And I shall place you living in your land.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His cup is gall, his meat is tears, His passion lasts a thousand years.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Blow, Israel, the sacred cornet! Call Back to thy courts whatever faint heart throb With thine ancestral blood, thy need craves all.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each separate soul contains the nation’s force, And both embrace the world.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hounded stag that has escaped the pack, And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell; The unimprisoned bird that finds the track Through sun-bathed space, to where his fellows dwell; The martyr, granted respite from the rack, The death-doomed victim pardoned from his cell, — Such only know the joy these exiles gain, — Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Freedom to love the law that Moses brought, To sing the songs of David, and to think The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught, Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink The universal air — for this they sought Refuge o'er wave and continent, to link Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain, And truth's perpetual lamp forbid to wane.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To his sunny creed A thousand gloomy, warring sects succeed.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Agamemnon's Tomb", st. 5 (c. 1877)
“Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies Behold the Spirit of the musky South, A creole with still-burning, languid eyes, Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The South", st. 1 (c. 1878)
“The children of the prophets of the Lord, Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate. Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state, The West refused them, and the East abhorred. No anchorage the known world could afford.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1492 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1492", l. 3 (1883)
“Down the long hall she glistens like a star, The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone, Yet none the less immortal, breathing on. Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Venus of the Louvre", l. 1 (c. 1884)
“A lady 'twixt two knights' stone effigies, And every day in dusky glory steeps Their sculptured slumber of five centuries.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: St Michael's Chapel", l. 12 (c. 1884)
“Then Nature shaped a poet's heart — a lyre From out whose chords the lightest breeze that blows Drew trembling music.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lo — a black line of birds in wavering thread Bore him the greetings of the deathless dead!”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned; this man is neither simple, sensuous, nor impassioned; therefore he is not a poet.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1644 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Compare John Milton: "simple, sensuous and passionate"—Of Education (1644)
“No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define — what is a bird, To classify by rote and book, nor fail To mark its structure and to note the scale Whereon its song might possibly be heard. Thus far, no farther; — so he spake the word. When of a sudden, — hark, the nightingale!Oh deeper, higher than he could divine That all-unearthly, untaught strain! He saw The plain, brown warbler, unabashed. "Not mine" (He cried) "the error of this fatal flaw. No bird is this, it soars beyond my line, Were it a bird, 'twould answer to my law.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If Victory makes the hero, raw Success The stamp of virtue, unremembered Be then the desperate strife, the storm and stress Of the last Warrior Jew. But if the man Who dies for freedom, loving all things less, Against world-legions, mustering his poor elan; The weak, the wronged, the miserable, to send Their death-cry's protest through the ages' span — If such an one be worthy, ye shall lend Eternal thanks to him, eternal praise. Nobler the conquered than the conqueror's end!”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Still on Israel's head forlorn, Every nation heaps its scorn.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame."Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Written in aid of Bartholdi Pedestal Fund (1883)