But think! – Think of that goddess standing on her pedestal…holding her torch out to those Russian refugees.
Constance Cary Harrison to Emma Lazarus
By no means am I a poet, and I know it. Nor do I aspire to be one. But I can rearrange and reword the work of others readily enough and in such a way as to make it more palatable to my own tastes. See here, for example. Neither am I particularly impressed by the poetry of the likes of Emma Lazarus; not, at least, that of hers which has graced the pedestal of “Lady Liberty” – first inside, now outside – since 1903. Honestly, I know nothing of Miss Lazarus’s literary or poetic works otherwise, nor do I believe I much care to. Judging by the girlish silliness of “The New Colossus,” serious doubts arise to my mind that any of the rest is particularly good or “awe-inspiring.” Or sane, for that matter. Albeit that obituaries upon her death apparently praised her as having been “an American poet of uncommon talent.” One may well consider the source(s) of course.
Be that as it may, or as it might have been, beneath the fold is my re-write of Miss Lazarus’s most well known and most famous sonnet; perhaps not her best work, as she apparently had to be coerced into writing it against her better instincts (see my epigraph at the top of the page), but nevertheless the only piece of hers that virtually anyone living has ever heard of or knows anything about.
“A New Colossus for a Free Dixie”
Unlike the giant robed lady of Ellis Island fame,
Welcoming hordes from lands both near and far;
Here at our sea-washed, sunlit gates shall stand
A mighty sentinel with double-edged sword in hand,
Whose flame is the bolt of lightning, and his name –
Rejector of Exiles.
His sworded-hand Bids solemn warning to all the world;
Fierce eyes and mighty count’nance doth command
The Gulf and eastern Ports of coastal Southern waters
Protector of his people against invasion of their land.
“Preserve, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” shouts he,
Thund’rous voice echoing to the corners of all the world:
“Keep your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Keep these, the homeless, tempest-tost to thee.
I raise my sword to guard the Narrow Door,
Lest there be no more of me. As There no more is she.”
With apologies to Miss Lazarus, etc.
I like it! A nice scriptural postlude should also be considered:
“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Matthew 7:14
Thank you, sir, you “get it.” That scripture is precisely what I was thinking of when I wrote that line. I would have retained Miss Lazarus’s “Gate,” and almost did, but I was trying to get away from her language as much as possible, so I wrote “Door” in its place instead. The most memorable lines of her sonnet we all know by heart, I couldn’t rightly do away with altogether without ruining the flow of the poem, and its (trepidatious) connection back to the original.
Fantastic!
Thank you, sir. Glad you liked it.