 Poetry: March 06, 2013 Issue [#5545] |
  Poetry
This week: Emma Lazarus Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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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-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
The Day Of Dead Soldiers
by Emma Lazarus
Welcome, thou gray and fragrant Sabbath-day,
To deathless love and valor dedicate!
Glorious with the richest flowers of May,
With early roses, lingering lilacs late,
With vivid green of grass and leaf and spray,
Thou bringest memories that far outweigh
The season's joy with thoughts of death and fate.
What words may paint the picture on the air
Of this broad land to-day from sea to sea?
The rolling prairies, purple valleys rare,
And royal mountains, endless rivers free,
Filled full with phantoms flitting everywhere,
Pale ghosts of buried armies, slowly there
From countless graves uprising silently.
A calm, grave day,—the sunlight does not shine
But thin, gray clouds bedrape the sky o'erhead.
The delicate air is filled with spirits fine,
The temperate breezes whisper of the dead.
What visions and what memories divine,
O holy Sabbath flower-day, are thine,
Painted in light against a field of red!
Behold the fairest spots in all the land,
To-day in this mid-season of fresh flowers,
Are heroes' graves, —by many a tender hand
Sprinkled With odorous, radiant-colored showers;
By mild, moist breezes delicately fanned,
Sending o'er distant towns their perfumes bland,
Loading with sweet aroma sunless hours.
Who knows what tremulous, dusky hands set free,
Deck quaintly with gay flowers the graves unknown?
What wealth of bloom is shed exuberantly,
On the far grave in Illinois alone,
Where the last hero, sleeping peacefully,
Beyond detraction and mistrust, doth lie,
By the glad winds of prairies overblown?
With hymns and prayer be this day sanctified,
And consecrate to heroes' memories;
Not with wild, violent grief for those who died,
O wives and mothers, but with patience wise,
Calm resignation, and a thankful pride,
That they have left their land a fame so wide,
So rich a page of thrilling histories.
Emma Lazarus was born on July 22, 1849. She was the fourth child out of seven for Moses and Esther Lazarus. The Lazarus family was a wealthy family that lived in Union Square, New York. From her early childhood Lazarus’s father noticed his daughter’s talents and encouraged her to pursue them. By the time Lazarus was seventeen her father privately published her first book, "Poems and Translation Written Between the Ages of Fourteen and Seventeen." The publication of this book caught the eye of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson and Lazarus became life long friends.
Lazarus was well educated and spoke English, German and French fluently. Her writings reflected her school and her family’s strong Jewish beliefs. Her next publication was "Admetus and Other Poems" published in 1871. As a young woman, Lazarus fought for immigrants’ rights and was often very vocal with her opinions on the way many of them were treated when first coming to the United States. Lazarus’s next book "Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life," was published in 1874.
In the last ten years of her life Lazarus was well known for her volume of translations. She was a guest speaker at several events and travelled to Europe twice. Her first was just a visit staying only a short time in England and in France. Her second trip over seas was after her father died in March of 1885 and she stayed for over two years. Her book "By the Waters of Babylon," was published in 1887. In September of 1887 Lazarus returned to her home in New York. She was very ill. They suspect she had cancer and on November 19, 1887 Lazarus passed away. The last of her works were published in 1888 by two of her sisters, "The Poems of Emma Lazarus, volumes I and II," posthumously.
Sympathy
by Emma Lazarus
Therefore I dare reveal my private woe,
The secret blots of my imperfect heart,
Nor strive to shrink or swell mine own desert,
Nor beautify nor hide. For this I know,
That even as I am, thou also art.
Thou past heroic forms unmoved shalt go,
To pause and bide with me, to whisper low:
"Not I alone am weak, not I apart
Must suffer, struggle, conquer day by day.
Here is my very cross by strangers borne,
Here is my bosom-sin wherefrom I pray
Hourly deliverance--this my rose, my thorn.
This woman my soul's need can understand,
Stretching o'er silent gulfs her sister hand."
Echoes
by Emma Lazarus
Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope,
The freshness of the elder lays, the might
Of manly, modern passion shall alight
Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope
(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope)
With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite
The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight;
Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope.
But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave
O'erbrowed by rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,
Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave,
Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,
Misprize thou not these echoes that belong
To one in love with solitude and song.
Life and Art
by Emma Lazarus
Not while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless
The poet-sould to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.
Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain
One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.
But when the dream is done, the pulses fail,
The day's illusion, with the day's sun set,
He, lonely in the twilight, sees the pale
Divine Consoler, featured like Regret,
Enter and clasp his hand and kiss his brow.
Then his lips ope to sing--as mine do now.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winners of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] are:
Waning Be This Moon
Wan be the day to highlight distress
sapping all energies of eagerness
Quiet howling is moving space
The candid spectre Time takes place
Cloak and dagger maiden fair
pierce the ages blithely where
the bride of night moonrise sighs
as vowing eternal evening eyes
Yet will eventide surely surcease
tepidly in begrudging release
silent in chagrin adorned
Skies of light and night are torn
Penchant then the darkness come
a portrait easily in victory won
like stoic rocks withstanding tides
against incessant sea sides' rise
Eerily come are the stars to play
yet faint in trepidation stay
The sage advice taken from day
to hold distant it's humble foray
Headlong falling diamond crescent
Agony seizing untimely descent
Horizons glimpse the mandarin rose
of what the holding future knows
So then... graceful call some sunlit voice
though faced away by fear of choice
Take and use what good from bad
'till waxing can again be had
A rose is a rose
Beneath a cloak of darkness
the maiden played her hand
in hopes to get her finger
into a wedding band.
-
The age old sage was wiry
though faint in his defense
and soon she had him cornered
with all of her pretense.
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A moonrise in her favor
left him no place to hide
and so this crafty maiden
became a lovely bride.
-
The portrait of their wedding
without a doubt still shows
that thorns though they be hidden
still grow upon the rose.
Honorable mention:
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