I was just thinking about this, and it's the Poem of the Day

[conuly]

The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus

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!”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/144956/emma-lazarus-the-new-colossus

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Yeahhh... that was more of an ideal than actually. One that America doesn't always live up to.

Still a great poem though and who knows, maybe someday, it'll be the standard.

[dewline]

And still we have those ready to damn Emma Lazarus as a fool for daring to write and say this.

[oloriel]

Funny, I was just thinking of this poem a few days ago, too.

Always more of an ideal than reality, perhaps, but it's still a beautiful sentiment.

[mama_kestrel]

I wish we lived up to it.

[pink_halen]

Ah, yes. The poem written for the statue of Liberty. It is inscribed on the base.

[adafrog]

Thanks.

[marahmarie]

This makes me think of the Statue of Liberty replica sitting on my stove - my stove*! - because I still have that dream, and know damn well it'll never be realized, but cling to it all the same.

Also *set to Sinatra's song* ... New York, New York *sigh*

*The replica's tiny - though it'd be hilarious to see it full-size, sitting on my stove.

[moon_custafer]

I like the collossi that are the Statue-of-Liberty equivalents in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival:
https://www.shauntan.net/arrival-book

[ndrosen]

And Emma Lazarus was a Georgist, a follower of the economist and reformer Henry George. Quite a few notable people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were, and some of us maintain that his ideas are still valid and important.

[smokingboot]

I love this so much.