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-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Emma Lazarus
I Lift My Lamp
Topic: Justice, Vision, & Leadership
“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-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American poet, writer, and translator from New York City. She wrote the sonnet The New Colossus in 1883, which includes "lines of world-wide welcome". Its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, installed in 1903, a decade and a half after Lazarus's death. The last stanza of the sonnet was set to music by Irving Berlin as the song "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" for the 1949 musical Miss Liberty, which was based on the sculpting of the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World).
The New Colossus
Wilson, Andrew, editor. World Scripture II. Universal Peace Federation, 2011, p. 1054 [Emma Lazarus].
Emma Lazarus
Theme: A Vision of America
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Emma Lazarus
This poem (excerpt), from the “The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus (1883) is inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, which has stood in New York harbor and welcomed millions of immigrants to America.