The New Colossus

“The New Colossus” was written by the Jewish-American poet Emma Lazarus. She wrote it as part of a drive in 1883 to raise funds for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. The poem was written during the American Realist period of the late 19th century, but stylistically it harkens back to the Romantic period early in the century. It takes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet though with a partly variant rhyme scheme. The poem sees the Statue of Liberty, and by extension the United States of America, as a place of refuge for the displaced and unwanted peoples of the world. As such, it contrasts traditional European values and beliefs with a new American ethos. Though a prolific writer, Lazarus is remembered today mostly for this poem, which has become as much of a national icon as the statue it commemorates.

Poet Biography

Emma Lazarus was born on July 22, 1849 to a large and prosperous family. Though of Jewish descent, the family did not participate in Jewish community life. She and her siblings received an extensive education, and Emma showed an early interest in writing poetry. Her first publication, Poems and Translations (1867), showcases these early efforts along with her translations of the likes of Heinrich Heine, Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Friedrich Schiller. She went on to write more poems and translations as well as a novel, Alide: An Episode of Goethe’s Life (1874), and two verse dramas, The Spangnoletto (1876) and The Dance of Death (1882). Lazarus also contributed to the many magazines of the period. Throughout her career, her poetry maintains a highly formal tone and vivid imagery reminiscent of the Romantic poets she translated.

Lazarus increasingly drew upon her Jewish heritage in her work and in her activism on behalf of Russian-Jewish immigrants who suffered renewed persecution in 1881. In 1883, she offered “The New Colossus” as part of a fund-raising effort for the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. The poem was a success; in fact, fellow poet and critic James Russell Lowell wrote Lazarus to say he liked it better than the statue. Nevertheless, “The New Colossus” was more or less forgotten by the time the statue opened in 1886, and Lazarus died in 1887. Then, in 1903, due to the efforts of the author’s friend Georgina Schuyler, a plaque with the poem’s text was placed on the inner wall of the pedestal, thus fixing the association of the Statue of Liberty with “The New Colossus” that exists to this day.

Poem Text

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!”

Lazarus, Emma. “The New Colossus.” 1883. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The poem opens with a contrast: “Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, / With conquering limbs astride from land to land” (Lines 1-2). This is a reference to the Colossus of Rhodes, a mammoth statue of the sun god Helios that stood at the harbor of Rhodes in the Third Century B.C.E. That statue is thought to be militaristic with its “conquering limbs,” which is an allusion to the legend that it stood astride the harbor entrance. The poem then focuses on the subject of the text, which is the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor with its “sea-washed, sunset gates” (Line 3). This statue is of “A mighty woman with a torch” (Line 4), and the speaker uses a striking image to describe the flame of the torch, calling it “the imprisoned lightning” (Line 5). The speaker identifies the statue not by its official name (Liberty Enlightening the World) but as “Mother of Exiles” (Line 6); that is, mother of displaced peoples. The torch “Glows world-wide welcome” (Line 7) for the exiles, and this welcome is coupled by the “mild eyes” (Line 7) of the statue.

Line 8 describes the scene, “The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,” the cities being New York and Brooklyn, the latter being a separate city at the time.

The remaining six lines of the poem personify the statue, saying, “cries she / With silent lips” (Lines 9-10). The statue first says, “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” (Line 9), meaning she is not interested in the legends and myths of the European tradition. Instead, she invites the immigrants, seen in unflattering terms, leaving Europe for America: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore” (Lines 10-12). These people are also described as “homeless” and “tempest-tost” (that is, enduring the storms of the ocean passage) (Line 13). The final line presents the image of the statue lighting the entrance to America: “I lift my lamp beside the golden door” (Line 14).