Daffodils

“Daffodils”

by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

 

Meaning of the Poem

Through the narrator’s chance encounter with a field of daffodils by the water, we are presented with the power and beauty of the natural world. It sounds simple enough, but there are several factors that contribute to this poem’s greatness. First, the poem comes at a time when the Western world is industrializing and man feels spiritually lonely in the face of an increasingly godless worldview. This feeling is perfectly harnessed by the depiction of wandering through the wilderness “lonely as a cloud” and by the ending scene of the narrator sadly lying on his couch “in vacant or in pensive mood” and finding happiness in solitude. The daffodils then become more than nature; they become a companion and a source of personal joy. Second, the very simplicity itself of enjoying nature—flowers, trees, the sea, the sky, the mountains etc.—is perfectly manifested by the simplicity of the poem: the four stanzas simply begin with daffodils, describe daffodils, compare daffodils to something else, and end on daffodils, respectively. Any common reader can easily get this poem, as easily as her or she might enjoy a walk around a lake.

Third, Wordsworth has subtly put forward more than just an ode to nature here. Every stanza mentions dancing and the third stanza even calls the daffodils “a show.” At this time in England, one might have paid money to see an opera or other performance of high artistic quality. Here, Wordsworth is putting forward the idea that nature can offer similar joys and even give you “wealth” instead of taking it from you, undoing the idea that beauty is attached to earthly money and social status. This, coupled with the language and topic of the poem, which are both relatively accessible to the common man, make for a great poem that demonstrates the all-encompassing and accessible nature of beauty and its associates, truth and bliss.

Ozymandias

“Ozymandias”

by Percy Bysshe Shelley ( 1792-1822)

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 

Meaning of the Poem

In this winding story within a story within a poem, Shelley paints for us the image of the ruins of a statue of ancient Egyptian king Ozymandias, who is today commonly known as Ramesses II. This king is still regarded as the greatest and most powerful Egyptian pharaoh. Yet, all that’s left of the statue are his legs, which tell us it was huge and impressive; the shattered head and snarling face, which tell us how tyrannical he was; and his inscribed quote hailing the magnificent structures that he built and that have been reduced to dust, which tells us they might not have been quite as magnificent as Ozymandias imagined. The image of a dictator-like king whose kingdom is no more creates a palpable irony. But, beyond that there is a perennial lesson about the inescapable and destructive forces of time, history, and nature. Success, fame, power, money, health, and prosperity can only last so long before fading into “lone and level sands.”

There are yet more layers of meaning here that elevate this into one of the greatest poems. In terms of lost civilizations that show the ephemeralness of human pursuits, there is no better example than the Egyptians—who we associate with such dazzling monuments as the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid at Giza (that stands far taller than the Statue of Liberty)—yet who completely lost their spectacular language, culture, and civilization. If the forces of time, history, and nature can take down the Egyptian civilization, it begs the question, “Who’s next?” Additionally, Ozymandias is believed to have been the villainous pharaoh who enslaved the ancient Hebrews and who Moses led the exodus from. If all ordinary pursuits, such as power and fame, are but dust, what remains, the poem suggests, are spirituality and morality—embodied by the ancient Hebrew faith. If you don’t have those then in the long run you are a “colossal wreck.” Thus, the perfectly composed scene itself, the Egyptian imagery, and the Biblical backstory convey a perennial message and make this a great poem.

Ulysses

Ulysses 

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BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

It little profits that an idle king, 

By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole 

Unequal laws unto a savage race, 

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink 

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd 

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when 

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; 

For always roaming with a hungry heart 

Much have I seen and known; cities of men 

And manners, climates, councils, governments, 

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; 

And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 

I am a part of all that I have met; 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 

For ever and forever when I move. 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life 

Were all too little, and of one to me 

Little remains: but every hour is saved 

From that eternal silence, something more, 

A bringer of new things; and vile it were 

For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire 

To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

         This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,— 

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild 

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 

Subdue them to the useful and the good. 

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 

Of common duties, decent not to fail 

In offices of tenderness, and pay 

Meet adoration to my household gods, 

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 

         There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: 

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, 

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me— 

That ever with a frolic welcome took 

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; 

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; 

Death closes all: but something ere the end, 

Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep 

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 

'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 

Push off, and sitting well in order smite 

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

Of all the western stars, until I die. 

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: 

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 

We are not now that strength which in old days 

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 

One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Kamay ng Birhen

Kamay ng Birhen (Hands of a Virgin)

“Virgin’s Hands” (1929) is beautiful, touching Tagalog poem by Jose Corazon de Jesus about how his love for a woman changed him for the better. It has been said that the hands of a virgin have the power to transform even hardened criminals into good men.

KAMAY NG BIRHEN

Mapuputing kamay, malasutla’t lambot,
kung hinahawi mo itong aking buhok,
ang lahat ng aking dalita sa loob
ay nalilimot ko nang lubos na lubos.

At parang bulaklak na nangakabuka
ang iyong daliring talulot ng ganda,
kung nasasalat ko, O butihing sinta,
parang ang bulaklak kahalikan ko na.

Kamay na mabait, may bulak sa lambot,
may puyo sa gitna paglikom sa loob;
magagandang kamay na parang may gamot,
isang daang sugat nabura sa haplos.

Parang mga ibong maputi’t mabait
na nakakatulog sa tapat ng dibdib;
ito’y bumubuka sa isa kong halik
at sa aking pisngi ay napakatamis.

Ang sabi sa k’wento, ang kamay ng birhen
ay napababait ang kahit salarin;
ako ay masama, nang ikaw’y giliwin,
ay nagpakabait nang iyong haplusin.

Manggagawa

MANGGAGAWA

by Jose Corazon de Jesus

Bawat palo ng martilyo sa bakal mong pinapanday
alipatong nagtilamsik, alitaptap sa kadimlan;
mga apoy ng pawis mong sa Bakal ay kumikinang
tandang ikaw ang may gawa nitong buong Santinakpan.
Nang tipakin mo ang bato ay natayo ang katedral
nang pukpukin mo ang tanso ay umugong ang batingaw,
nang lutuin mo ang pilak ang salapi a lumitaw,
si Puhunan ay gawa mo, kaya ngayon’y nagyayabang.

Kung may ilaw na kumisap ay ilaw ng iyong tadyang,
kung may gusaling naangat, tandang ikaw ang pumasan
mula sa duyan ng bata ay kamau mo ang gumalaw
hanggang hukay ay gawa mo ang krus na nakalagay.

Kaya ikaw ay marapat dakilain at itanghal
pagkat ikaw ang yumari nitong buong Kabihasnan…..
Bawat patak ng pawis mo’y yumayari ka ng dangal,
dinadala mo ang lahi sa luklukan ng tagumpay.

Mabuhay ka nng buhay na walang wakas, walang hanggan,
at hihinto ang pag-ikot nitong mundo pag namatay.

Kalupi ng Puso

Kalupi ng Puso

by Jose Corazon de Jesus

Talaan ng aking mga dinaramdam,
Kasangguning lihim ng nais tandaan,
bawat dahon niya ay kinalalagyan
ng isang gunitang pagkamahal-mahal

Kaluping maliit sa tapat ng puso
ang bawat talata’y puno ng pagsuyo,
ang takip ay bughaw, dito nakatago
ang lihim ng aking ligaya’t siphayo.

Nang buwan ng Mayo kami nagkilala
at tila Mayo rin nang magkalayo na;
sa kaluping ito nababasa-basa
ang lahat ng aking mga alaala.

Nakatala rito ang buwan at araw
ng aking ligaya at kapighatian…
isang dapithapo’y nagugunam-gunam
sa mga mata ko ang luha’y umapaw…
Anupa’t kung ako’y tila nalulungkot
binabasa-basa ang nagdaang lugod;
ang alaala ko’y dito nagagamot,
sa munting kaluping puno ng himutok.

Matandang kalupi ng aking sinapit
dala mo nang lahat ang tuwa ko’t hapis;
kung binubuksan ka’y parang lumalapit
ang lahat ng aking nabigong pag-ibig.

Sa dilaw mong dahong ngayon ay kupas na
ang lumang pagsuyo’y naaalaala,
O, kaluping bughaw, kung kita’y mabasa
masayang malungkot na hinahagkan ka…

May ilang bulaklak at dahong natuyo
na sa iyo’y lihim na nangakatago,
tuwi kong mamasdan, luha’y tumutulo
tuwi kong hahagkan, puso’y nagdurugo.

Ozymandias

 “Ozymandias” 

by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Meaning of the Poem

In this winding story within a story within a poem, Shelley paints for us the image of the ruins of a statue of ancient Egyptian king Ozymandias, who is today commonly known as Ramesses II. This king is still regarded as the greatest and most powerful Egyptian pharaoh. Yet, all that’s left of the statue are his legs, which tell us it was huge and impressive; the shattered head and snarling face, which tell us how tyrannical he was; and his inscribed quote hailing the magnificent structures that he built and that have been reduced to dust, which tells us they might not have been quite as magnificent as Ozymandias imagined. The image of a dictator-like king whose kingdom is no more creates a palpable irony. But, beyond that there is a perennial lesson about the inescapable and destructive forces of time, history, and nature. Success, fame, power, money, health, and prosperity can only last so long before fading into “lone and level sands.”

There are yet more layers of meaning here that elevate this into one of the greatest poems. In terms of lost civilizations that show the ephemeralness of human pursuits, there is no better example than the Egyptians—who we associate with such dazzling monuments as the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid at Giza (that stands far taller than the Statue of Liberty)—yet who completely lost their spectacular language, culture, and civilization. If the forces of time, history, and nature can take down the Egyptian civilization, it begs the question, “Who’s next?” Additionally, Ozymandias is believed to have been the villainous pharaoh who enslaved the ancient Hebrews and who Moses led the exodus from. If all ordinary pursuits, such as power and fame, are but dust, what remains, the poem suggests, are spirituality and morality—embodied by the ancient Hebrew faith. If you don’t have those then in the long run you are a “colossal wreck.” Thus, the perfectly composed scene itself, the Egyptian imagery, and the Biblical backstory convey a perennial message and make this a great poem.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

 “Ode on a Grecian Urn” 

by John Keats (1795-1821)

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Meaning of the Poem

As if in response to Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” offers a sort of antidote to the inescapable and destructive force of time. Indeed, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” was published in 1819 just a year or so after “Ozymandias.” The antidote is simple: art. The art on the Grecian urn—which is basically a decorative pot from ancient Greece—has survived for thousands of years. While empires rose and fell, the Grecian urn survived. Musicians, trees, lovers, heifers, and priests all continue dying decade after decade and century after century, but their artistic depictions on the Grecian urn live on for what seems eternity.

This realization about the timeless nature of art is not new now nor was it in the 1800s, but Keats has chosen a perfect example since ancient Greek civilization so famously disappeared into the ages, being subsumed by the Romans, and mostly lost until the Renaissance a thousand years later. Now, the ancient Greeks are all certainly dead (like the king Ozymandias in Shelley’s poem) but the Greek art and culture live on through Renaissance painters, the Olympic Games, endemic Neoclassical architecture, and, of course, the Grecian urn.

Further, what is depicted on the Grecian urn is a variety of life that makes the otherwise cold urn feel alive and vibrant. This aliveness is accentuated by Keats’s barrage of questions and blaring exclamations: “More happy love! more happy, happy love!” Art, he seems to suggest, is more alive and real than we might imagine. Indeed, the last two lines can be read as the urn itself talking: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” In these profound lines, Keats places us within ignorance, suggesting that what we know on earth is limited, but that artistic beauty, which he has now established is alive, is connected with truth. Thus, we can escape ignorance, humanness, and certain death and approach another form of life and truth through the beauty of art. This effectively completes the thought that began in Ozymandias and makes this a great poem one notch up from its predecessor.

Wordsworth

Wordsworth (1770-1850)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Meaning of the Poem

Through the narrator’s chance encounter with a field of daffodils by the water, we are presented with the power and beauty of the natural world. It sounds simple enough, but there are several factors that contribute to this poem’s greatness. First, the poem comes at a time when the Western world is industrializing and man feels spiritually lonely in the face of an increasingly godless worldview. This feeling is perfectly harnessed by the depiction of wandering through the wilderness “lonely as a cloud” and by the ending scene of the narrator sadly lying on his couch “in vacant or in pensive mood” and finding happiness in solitude. The daffodils then become more than nature; they become a companion and a source of personal joy. Second, the very simplicity itself of enjoying nature—flowers, trees, the sea, the sky, the mountains etc.—is perfectly manifested by the simplicity of the poem: the four stanzas simply begin with daffodils, describe daffodils, compare daffodils to something else, and end on daffodils, respectively. Any common reader can easily get this poem, as easily as her or she might enjoy a walk around a lake.

Third, Wordsworth has subtly put forward more than just an ode to nature here. Every stanza mentions dancing and the third stanza even calls the daffodils “a show.” At this time in England, one might have paid money to see an opera or other performance of high artistic quality. Here, Wordsworth is putting forward the idea that nature can offer similar joys and even give you “wealth” instead of taking it from you, undoing the idea that beauty is attached to earthly money and social status. This, coupled with the language and topic of the poem, which are both relatively accessible to the common man, make for a great poem that demonstrates the all-encompassing and accessible nature of beauty and its associates, truth and bliss.

A Pair of Lovers in the Street

"A Pair Of Lovers In The Street"

Poem by Arthur Henry Adams

A PAIR of lovers in the street! 

I dare not mock: with reverence meet 

My unforgetting heart I cheat. 

Ah, God, spare me—so soon again 

At the barred door to beat in vain, 

And find their dalliance such fierce pain! 

I, yearning up from Hell’s abyss, 

See, dreaming through their worlds of bliss, 

This Dante and his Beatrice! 

For these the distant goal have won 

For which God made the plasm and sun; 

His patient labouring is done. 

For these each Spring has been a bride, 

And lonely worlds were spawned and died. 

Chaos for them in birth-throes cried. 

Far out in seas of Space forlorn 

This crescent wave was slowly born 

That thunders on the beach of morn. 

Ah, they, so soon to be meshed in 

The web of splendour, silken-thin, 

The nebulae were set to spin! 

Up the long path from joy to joy 

Love led the way. Can aught destroy 

The task that was the stars’ employ? 

Their ecstasy to God is more 

Than Lucifer at Heaven’s door 

Entreating pardon for his war. 

These two are gods, for, by love swayed, 

They have God’s special task essayed, 

And new worlds for their gladness made. 

This little hour so lightly given 

Makes earth too mean a place to live in, 

And broken toys His Hell and Heaven. 

All Time, expectant of their bliss, 

Hangs fearful. Space through her abyss 

Shudders if they this hour should miss. 

For if their kiss they went without, 

The stars would be a raining rout, 

And time in anguish flicker out. 

About God’s room from star to sun 

A stealthy slippered Thing would run, 

Quenching cold tapers one by one. 

But they have kissed. Eternity, 

Like a great clock, beats steadily 

For these mazed fools—but not for me! 

Of God’s wide universe the strands 

They hold within their clinging hands; 

The stars march on at their commands. 

So from this moment blossom free 

New universes tirelessly— 

Aeons of unguessed ecstasy! 

But I can only bow and beat 

Vain hands about God’s mercy-seat, 

And, still remembering, still entreat. 

Surely my penance is complete! 

The rack turns grimly when I meet 

A pair of lovers on the street 

A story

"A Story"

 Poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

DO you want to hear a story,

With a nobler praise than 'glory,'

Of a man who loved the right like heaven and loathed the wrong like

hell?

Then, that story let me tell you

Once again, though it as well you

Know as I — the splendid story of the man they call Parnell!

By the wayside of the nations,

Lashed with whips and execrations,

Helpless, hopeless, bleeding, dying, she, the Maiden Nation, lay;

And the burthen of dishonour

Weighed so grievously upon her

That her very children hid their eyes and crept in shame away.

And there as she was lying

Helpless, hopeless, bleeding, dying,

All her high-born foes came round her, fleering, jeering, as they said:

'What is freedom fought and won for?

She is down! She's dead and done for!'

And her weeping children shuddered as they crouched and whispered:

'Dead!'

Then suddenly up-starting,

All that throng before him parting,

See, a Man with firm step breaking through you central knot that gives;

And, as by some dear lost sister,

He knelt down, and softly kissed her,

And he raised his pale, proud face, and cried: 'She is not dead. She lives!

'O she lives, I say, and I here,

I am come to fight and die here

For the love my heart has for her like a slow consuming fire;

For the love of her low-lying,

For the hatred deep, undying

Of the robber lords who struck and stabbed and trod her in the mire!'

Then upon that cry bewildering,

Some of them, her hapless children —

In their hearts there leaped up hope like light when night gives birth to

day;

And, as mocks and threats defied him,

One by one they came beside him,

Till they stood, a band of heroes, sombre, desperate, at bay!

And the battle that they fought there,

And the bitter truth they taught there

To the blinded Sister-Nation suffering grievously alway,

All the wrong and rapine past hers,

Of her lords and her task-masters,

Is not this the larger hope of all as night gives birth to day?

For the lords and liars are quaking

At the People's stern awaking

From their slumber of the ages; and the Peoples slowly rise,

And with hands locked tight together,

One in heart and soul for ever,

Watch the sun of Light and Liberty leap up into the skies!

That's the story, that's the story

With a nobler praise than 'glory,'

Of the Man who loved the right like heaven and loathed the wrong like

hell,

And with calm, proud exultation

Bade her stand at last a nation,

Ireland, Ireland that is one name with the name of Charles Parnell! 

Identity

Identity

By Thomas Bailey Aldrich

SOMEWHERE--in desolate wind-swept space-- 

In Twilight-land--in No-man's land-- 

Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, 

And bade each other stand. 

"And who are you?" cried one a-gape, 

Shuddering in the gloaming light. 

"I know not," said the second Shape, 

"I only died last night!" 

The New Colossus

“The New Colossus” 

by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)

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-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Meaning of the Poem

Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, this sonnet may have the greatest placement of any English poem. It also has one of the greatest placements in history. Lazarus compares the Statue of Liberty to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Like the Statue of Liberty, the Colossus of Rhodes was an enormous god-like statue positioned in a harbor. Although the Colossus of Rhodes no longer stands, it symbolizes the ancient Greek world and the greatness of the ancient Greek and Roman civilization, which was lost for a thousand years to the West, and only fully recovered again during the Renaissance. “The New Colossus” succinctly crystallizes the connection between the ancient world and America, a modern nation. It’s a connection that can be seen in the White House and other state and judicial buildings across America that architecturally mirror ancient Greek and Roman buildings; and in the American political system that mirrors Athenian Democracy and Roman Republicanism.

In the midst of this vast comparison of the ancient and the American, Lazarus still manages to clearly render America’s distinct character. It is the can-do spirit of taking those persecuted and poor from around the world and giving them a new opportunity and hope for the future, what she calls “the golden door.” It is a uniquely scrappy and compassionate quality that sets Americans apart from the ancients. The relevance of this poem stretches all the way back to the pilgrims fleeing religious persecution in Europe to the controversies surrounding modern immigrants from Mexico and the Middle East. While circumstances today have changed drastically, there is no denying that this open door was part of what made America great once upon a time. It’s the perfect depiction of this quintessential Americanness that makes “The New Colossus” also outstanding.