Poems by Emma Lazarus

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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Autumn Sadness

Air and sky are swathed in gold

Fold on fold,

Light glows through the trees like wine.

Earth, sun-quickened, swoons for bliss

'Neath his kiss,

Breathless in a trance divine.

Nature pauses from her task,

Just to bask

by Emma Lazarus

Assurance

Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss

Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed

Together in my dream, through some dim glade,

Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss.

The air was dank with dew, between the trees,

The hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent.

Cheek pressed to cheek, the cool, the hot night-breeze

Mingled ouir hair, our breath, and came and went,

by Emma Lazarus

Venus of the Louvre

Down the long hall she glistens like a star,

The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone,

Yet none the less immortal, breathing on.

Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar.

When first the enthralled enchantress from afar

Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone,

Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne,

As when she guided once her dove-drawn car,—

by Emma Lazarus

The Day Of Dead Soldiers

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

by Emma Lazarus

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;

by Emma Lazarus

The Garden Of Adonis

(The Garden of Life in Spenser's "Faerie Queene.")

IT is no fabled garden in the skies,

But bloometh here— this is no world of death;

And nothing that once liveth, ever dies,

And naught that breathes can ever cease to breathe,

And naught that bloometh ever withereth.

The gods can ne'er take back their gifts from men,

They gave us life,— they cannot take again.

by Emma Lazarus

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,

by Emma Lazarus

Sympathy

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

by Emma Lazarus

Dreams

A DREAM of lilies: all the blooming earth,

A garden full of fairies and of flowers;

Its only music the glad cry of mirth,

While the warm sun weaves golden-tissued hours;

Hope a bright angel, beautiful and true

As Truth herself, and life a lovely toy,

Which ne'er will weary us, ne'er break, a new

Eternal source of pleasure and of joy.

by Emma Lazarus

Arabesque

On a background of pale gold

I would trace with quaint design,

Penciled fine,

Brilliant-colored, Moorish scenes,

Mosques and crescents, pages, queens,

Line on line,

That the prose-world of to-day

Might the gorgeous Past's array

by Emma Lazarus

1492

Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate,

Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword,

The children of the prophets of the Lord,

Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.

Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state,

The West refused them, and the East abhorred.

No anchorage the known world could afford,

Close-locked was every port, barred every gate.

by Emma Lazarus

Marriage Bells

Music and silver chimes and sunlit air,

Freighted with the scent of honeyed orange-flower;

Glad, friendly festal faces everywhere.

She, rapt from all in this unearthly hour,

With cloudlike, cast-back veil and faint-flushed cheek,

In bridal beauty moves as in a trance

Alone with him, and fears to breathe, to speak,

Lest the rare, subtle spell dissolve perchance.

by Emma Lazarus