A June Night
Ten o'clock: the broken moon
Hangs not yet a half hour high,
Yellow as a shield of brass,
In the dewy air of June,
Poised between the vaulted sky
And the ocean's liquid glass.
Earth lies in the shadow still;
Low black bushes, trees, and lawn
Night's ambrosial dews absorb;
Through the foliage creeps a thrill,
Whispering of yon spectral dawn
And the hidden climbing orb.
Higher, higher, gathering light,
Veiling with a golden gauze
All the trembling atmosphere,
See, the rayless disk grows white!
Hark, the glittering billows pause!
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Lohengrin: Proem
THE alert and valiant faith that could respond,
Upon life's threshold, to the highest call,
Unquestioning of what might lie beyond,—
Courage afield and courtesy in hall,
And sweet, unbroken patience therewithal,
And simple loyalty,— can these things be
The virtues that have died with chivalry?
The lapsing stream that leads to love and fate,
Now mystic-shadowed, and now broad and free,
Reflecting all the gold of heaven's gate;
The snowy bird's symbolic purity,
The toilsome contest and the victory,
The troubled joy of life, and after these,
The crowning guerdon of the perfect peace,—
These dreams have filled my dazzled sense and brain,
With images so vivid that at last
I wake to life and find them all again
Repeated in the present as the past,
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Florence Nightingale
UPON the whitewashed walls
A woman's shadow falls,
A woman walketh o'er the darksome floors.
A soft, angelic smile
Lighteth her face the while,
In passing through the dismal corridors.
And now and then there slips
A word from out her lips,
More sweet and grateful to those listening ears
Than the most plaintive tale
Of the sad nightingale,
Whose name and tenderness this woman bears.
Her presence in the room
Of agony and gloom,
No fretful murmurs, no coarse words profane;
For while she standeth there,
All words are hushed save prayer;
She seems God's angel weeping o'er man's pain.
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The World’s Justice
If the sudden tidings came
That on some far, foreign coast,
Buried ages long from fame,
Had been found a remnant lost
Of that hoary race who dwelt
By the golden Nile divine,
Spake the Pharaoh's tongue and knelt
At the moon-crowned Isis' shrine-
How at reverend Egypt's feet,
Pilgrims from all lands would meet!
If the sudden news were known,
That anigh the desert-place
Where once blossomed Babylon,
Scions of a mighty race
Still survived, of giant build,
Huntsmen, warriors, priest and sage,
Whose ancestral fame had filled,
Trumpet-tongued, the earlier age,
How at old Assyria's feet
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Idyl
The swallows made twitter incessant,
The thrushes were wild with their mirth.
The ways and the woods were made pleasant,
And the flowering nooks of the earth.
And the sunshine sufficed to rejoice me,
And the air was as bracing as wine,
And the sky and the shadows and grasses
Were enough to make living divine.
Then I saw on the ground two gray robins,
One with glorious flame-colored vest,
'Neath the shade of some delicate bluebells,
By the breeze of the morning caressed.
They were singing of love in the shadow;
She was bashful, and modest, and coy,
And he sang to her tenderest love-songs,
And madrigals full of his joy.
And his song came forth clearer and clearer,
With each passionate, musical note;
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Banner Of The Jew
Wake, Israel, wake! Recall to-day
The glorious Maccabean rage,
The sire heroic, hoary-gray,
His five-fold lion-lineage:
The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.
From Mizpeh's mountain-ridge they saw
Jerusalem's empty streets, her shrine
Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law,
With idol and with pagan sign.
Mourners in tattered black were there,
With ashes sprinkled on their hair.
Then from the stony peak there rang
A blast to ope the graves: down poured
The Maccabean clan, who sang
Their battle-anthem to the Lord.
Five heroes lead, and following, see,
Ten thousand rush to victory!
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
City Visions
I
As the blind Milton's memory of light,
The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone,
Wroght joys for them surpassing all things known
In our restricted sphere of sound and sight,--
So while the glaring streets of brick and stone
Vix with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night,
I will give rein to Fancy, taking flight
From dismal now and here, and dwell alone
With new-enfranchised senses. All day long,
Think ye 't is I, who sit 'twixt darkened walls,
While ye chase beauty over land and sea?
Uplift on wings of some rare poet's song
Where the wide billow laughs and leaps and falls,
I soar cloud-high, free as the winds are free.
II
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Crowing of the Red Cock
Across the Eastern sky has glowed
The flicker of a blood-red dawn,
Once more the clarion cock has crowed,
Once more the sword of Christ is drawn.
A million burning rooftrees light
The world-wide path of Israel's flight.
Where is the Hebrew's fatherland?
The folk of Christ is sore bestead;
The Son of Man is bruised and banned,
Nor finds whereon to lay his head.
His cup is gall, his meat is tears,
His passion lasts a thousand years.
Each crime that wakes in man the beast,
Is visited upon his kind.
The lust of mobs, the greed of priest,
The tyranny of kings, combined
To root his seed from earth again,
His record is one cry of pain.
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Destiny
1856
Paris, from throats of iron, silver, brass,
Joy-thundering cannon, blent with chiming bells,
And martial strains, the full-voiced pæan swells.
The air is starred with flags, the chanted mass
Throngs all the churches, yet the broad streets swarm
With glad-eyed groups who chatter, laugh, and pass,
In holiday confusion, class with class.
And over all the spring, the sun-floods warm!
In the Imperial palace that March morn,
The beautiful young mother lay and smiled;
For by her side just breathed the Prince, her child,
Heir to an empire, to the purple born,
Crowned with the Titan's name that stirs the heart
Like a blown clarion--one more Bonaparte.
1879
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Magnetism
By the impulse of my will,
By the red flame in my blood,
By me nerves' electric thrill,
By the passion of my mood,
My concentrated desire,
My undying, desperate love,
I ignore Fate, I defy her,
Iron-hearted Death I move.
When the town lies numb with sleep,
Here, round-eyed I sit; my breath
Quickly stirred, my flesh a-creep,
And I force the gates of death.
I nor move nor speak-you'd deem
From my quiet face and hands,
I were tranced-but in her dream,
SHE responds, she understands.
I have power on what is not,
Or on what has ceased to be,
From that deep, earth-hollowed spot,
I can lift her up to me.
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!