American

Emma Lazarus

1849–1887


Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) was an American poet and essayist, born in New York City to a prosperous Sephardic Jewish family. She published her first book of verse at seventeen, won the admiration and friendship of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and wrote narrative poems such as Admetus and Tannhauser before turning to lyric and sonnet forms.

From 1881, after the pogroms in Russia, she took up Jewish themes in poems such as The Banner of the Jew and The Crowing of the Red Cock, and worked on behalf of refugees. Her sonnet The New Colossus (1883), written for a fund-raising auction for the Statue of Liberty pedestal, is now inscribed there. She died in New York at the age of 38.

  1. Epochs: I. Youth
  2. Epochs: II. Regret
  3. Epochs: III. Longing
  4. Epochs: IV. Storm
  5. Epochs: V. Surprise
  6. Epochs: VI. Grief
  7. Epochs: VII. Acceptance
  8. Epochs: VIII. Loneliness
  9. Epochs: IX. Sympathy
  10. Epochs: X. Patience
  11. Epochs: XI. Hope
  12. Epochs: XII. Compensation
  13. Epochs: XIII. Faith
  14. Epochs: XIV. Work
  15. Epochs: XV. Victory
  16. Epochs: XVI. Peace
  17. How Long?
  18. Heroes
  19. Admetus
  20. Tannhauser
  21. Links
  22. Matins
  23. Saint Romualdo
  24. Afternoon
  25. Phantasies: I. Evening
  26. Phantasies: II. Aspiration
  27. Phantasies: III. Wherefore?
  28. Phantasies: IV. Fancies
  29. Phantasies: V. In the Night
  30. Phantasies: VI. Faerie
  31. Phantasies: VII. Confused Dreams
  32. Phantasies: VIII. The End of the Song
  33. On the Proposal to Erect a Monument in England to Lord Byron
  34. Arabesque
  35. Agamemnon's Tomb
  36. Sic Semper Liberatoribus!
  37. Don Rafael
  38. Off Rough Point
  39. Mater Amabilis
  40. Fog
  41. The Elixir
  42. Song
  43. Spring Longing
  44. The South
  45. Spring Star: I
  46. Spring Star: II
  47. A June Night
  48. Magnetism
  49. August Moon
  50. Sunrise
  51. A Masque of Venice
  52. Autumn Sadness
  53. Echoes
  54. Success
  55. The New Colossus
  56. Venus of the Louvre
  57. Chopin: I
  58. Chopin: II
  59. Chopin: III
  60. Chopin: IV
  61. Symphonic Studies: Prelude
  62. Symphonic Studies: I
  63. Symphonic Studies: II
  64. Symphonic Studies: III
  65. Symphonic Studies: IV
  66. Symphonic Studies: V
  67. Symphonic Studies: Epilogue
  68. Long Island Sound
  69. Destiny
  70. From One Augur to Another
  71. The Cranes of Ibycus
  72. Critic and Poet
  73. St. Michael's Chapel
  74. Life and Art
  75. Sympathy
  76. Youth and Death
  77. Age and Death
  78. City Visions: I
  79. City Visions: II
  80. Influence
  81. Restlessness
  82. The New Year
  83. The Crowing of the Red Cock
  84. In Exile
  85. In Memoriam--Rev. J. J. Lyons
  86. The Valley of Baca
  87. The Banner of the Jew
  88. The Guardian of the Red Disk
  89. The New Ezekiel
  90. The Choice
  91. The World's Justice
  92. The Supreme Sacrifice
  93. The Feast of Lights
  94. Gifts
  95. Bar Kochba
  96. 1492
  97. The Birth of Man
  98. Raschi in Prague
  99. The Death of Raschi
  100. An Epistle
  101. To Carmen Sylva
  102. Don Pedrillo
  103. Fra Pedro

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