EMM A LAZARUS
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©2OO2 Gregory Eiselein
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National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Lazarus, Emma, 1849-1887
Emma Lazarus : selected poems and other writings
(Broadview literary texts)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN I-55III-285-X
I. Eiselein, Gregory, 1965- II.Title. III. Series.
PS2233.A4 2002 8II'.4 C2002-901006-3
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EMM A LAZARUS:
SELECTE D POEMS AND
OTHER WRITINGS
edited by Gregory Eiselein
broadview literary texts
Contents
Acknowledgements • II
Introduction • 15
Emma Lazarus: A Brief Chronology • 33
A Note on the Texts • 35
From Poems and Translations • 41
Links • 41
Clytie • 41
LONG ISLAND SOUND • 43
From Admetus and Other Poems • 44
Epochs [I-VII, XVI] • 44
In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport • 49
Heroes • 51
PHANTASIES • 54
MOODS • 61
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE FRENCH OF
FRANCOIS COPPEE • 62
ARABESQUE • 63
THE CRANES OF IBYCUS • 65
OFF ROUGH POINT • 66
LEDA & THE SWAN • 67
THE SOUTH • 67
SYMPHONIC STUDIES • 70
THE CREATION OF MAN • 73
A LETTER, FROM JUDAH HALLEVI TO His FRIEND ISAAC • 79
CHOPIN • 81
NlGHT-PlECE • 83
DESTINY • 83
THE TAMING OF THE FALCON • 85
RASCHI IN PRAGUE • 85
ASSURANCE • 96
ECHOES • 96
From Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine • 98
Morphine • 98
Homeward Bound [LXV] • 99
The Asra • 99
Song • 100
An Apparition in the Sea • 100
Question • 102
CITY VISIONS • 103
PROGRESS AND POVERTY • 104
LAURA'S DEATH • 105
TRIUMPH OF LOVE • 105
Songs of a Semite: The Dance to Death, and Other Poems • 107
The Dance to Death; A Historical Tragedy in
Five Acts • 109
Songs • 175
The New Year • 175
The Crowing of the Red Cock • 176
In Exile • 178
In Memoriam—Rev. J.J. Lyons • 179
The Valley of Baca • 181
The Banner of the Jew • 182
The Guardian of the Red Disk • 183
A Translation of Heine and Two Imitations • 186
Donna Clara • 186
Don Pedrillo • 189
Fra Pedro • 193
Translations from the Hebrew Poets of Mediaeval
Spain • 198
Solomon ben Judah Gabirol • 198
Night-Thoughts • 198
Meditations • 199
Hymn • 201
To a Detractor • 204
Fragment • 205
Stanzas • 205
Wine and Grief • 206
Defiance • 206
A Degenerate Age • 207
Judah ben Ha-Levi • 207
Love-Song • 207
Separation • 208
Longing for Jerusalem • 208
On the Voyage to Jerusalem I • 209
On the Voyage to Jerusalem II • 211
To the West Wind III • 211
Moses ben Esra • 212
Extracts from the Book of Tarshish, or "Necklace
of Pearls" • 212
In the Night • 214
From the "Divan" • 217
Love Song of Alcharisi • 217
AN EPISTLE FROM JOSHUA IBN VIVES OF ALLORQUI • 218
THE WORLD'S JUSTICE • 228
THE FEAST OF LIGHTS • 229
LIFE AND ART • 231
THE NEW EZEKIEL • 232
CONSOLATION • 232
THE NEW COLOSSUS • 233
1492 • 233
CRITIC AND POET • 234
THE CHOICE • 235
THE SUPREME SACRIFICE • 235
THE BIRTH OF MAN • 236
To R.WE. • 238
BAR KOCHBA • 238
THE VENUS OF THE LOUVRE • 239
GIFTS • 240
ADMONITION • 241
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON • 241
A MASQUE OF VENICE • 247
Selected Essays • 250
Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism • 250
Emerson's Personality • 253
An Epistle to the Hebrews [V, XII] • 259
The Jewish Problem • 264
The Poet Heine • 281
A Day in Surrey with William Morris • 288
Appendix A: Biography • 293
I. Josephine Lazarus, "Emma Lazarus" • 293
Appendix B: Selections from the Correspondence • 310
1. From Ralph Waldo Emerson, 14 April 1868 • 310
2. To Ralph Waldo Emerson, 27 June 1868 • 310
3. From Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19 Nov. 1868 • 311
4. To Ralph Waldo Emerson, 22 Nov. 1868 • 311
5. To Ralph Waldo Emerson, 27 Dec. 1874 • 312
6. To Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, 25 Feb. [1877] • 312
7. John Burroughs, to Emma Lazarus, 29 Apr.
1878 • 313
8. To Helena deKay Gilder, 18 Aug. 1879 • 313
9. To Edmund Clarence Stedman,
[Summer 1881] • 314
10. To Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 14 Jan. 1882 • 315
11. To Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 23 Aug. 1882 • 316
12. To Samuel Gray Ward, 12 Oct. 1882 • 316
13. To Philip Cowen, 5 May [1883] • 317
14. To Helena deKay Gilder, 4 July 1883 • 317
15. From James Russell Lowell, 17 Dec. 1883 • 318
16. To Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 29 Jan. [1884] • 318
Appendix C: Critical Response • 320
1. The New- York Times • 320
2. The Illustrated London News • 320
3. The New- York Times • 321
4. The Jewish Chronicle • 322
5. Pereira Mendes • 323
6. The American Hebrew • 324
7. The Literary World • 326
8. Solomon Solis-Cohen • 327
9. Edmund Clarence Stedman • 330
Appendix D: Cultural Contexts • 333
1. Heinrich Graetz, from Geschichte der Juden [The
History of the Jews] • 333
2. George Eliot, from Daniel Deronda • 336
3. From "The Persecution of the Jews in Russia," The
Times • 342
4. Mme. Z. Ragozin, from "Russian Jews and Gentiles.
From a Russian Point of View" • 345
5. Samuel S. Cox, from the Congressional
Record • 349
6. Abram S. Isaacs, "Will the Jews Return
to Palestine?" • 353
7. Telemachus Thomas Timayenis, from The American
Jew: An Expose of His Career • 357
Select Bibliography • 363
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Acknowledgemen s
for Michele
In preparing this edition of Emma Lazarus's Selected Poems and
Other Writings, I have had the help of generous colleagues and the
institutional support of various universities, libraries, and archives.
For sharing his knowledge of the Talmud, I am grateful to
Mordechai Torczyner. For help with questions about Hebrew, I
thank Nilli Diengott. For listening to my ideas about Lazarus and
offering thoughtful responses, I would like to thank Paula
Bennett, Elizabeth Petrino, Janet Gray, Marianne Noble, Cheryl
Torsney, Gary Williams, Bette Roth Young, Anita Zilversmit, and
the anonymous readers for Broadview Press. I am very grateful
to Juliet Demeter, Archivist at the Rosary Hill Home, for send-
ing me photocopies of Lazarus s letters. The staff at the John M.
Olin Library at Cornell University provided valuable assistance,
as did the archivists at the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the
American Jewish Archives and the staff at Hebrew Union
College s Klau Library in Cincinnati.This edition would not have
been possible without the resources and support of the archives
at American Jewish Historical Society. I am delighted to thank
the archivists who work there, especially Abigail Schoolman who
provided indispensable assistance and encouragement. For their
support and encouragement, I thank Carol Jochnowitz and
Morris U. Schappes.
Kansas State University has been a warm and intellectually
stimulating place to work on this edition, and I thank my
colleagues and students there. In particular, I want to thank the
Head of the English Department, Larry Rodgers, who offered
enthusiastic feedback and found ways to fund editorial assistance
and visits to libraries and archives.The Provosts Office provided
much needed support in the form of a USRG grant that enabled
me to spend time at the American Jewish Historical Society. The
staff of Kansas State's Interlibrary Loan department—Kathy
Coleman, Sharon Van Rysselburghe, Lori Fenton, Bernie Randall,
and Cherie Geiser—continue to amaze me, and I thank them a
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS II
million times for their help. For assistance with transcription and
proofreading, I am grateful to Kyle Semmel, Audrea Suther, and
especially Amy Mauton, whose year of work on this edition was
thorough, careful, and intelligent. Sara Wege provided help more
often than I can recount. Linda Brigham answered numerous
questions about Lazarus s translations from the German, and she
and Michele Janette cheerfully endured my endless wish to talk
about Lazarus. My discussions of Lazarus with Lee Behlman and
Nancy Cervetti were also beneficial. Lillian Kremer provided me
with advice from the inception of the edition to last-minute
questions at its completion; I have benefitted from her insight,
recommendations, and example as a scholar.
Broadview Press and its editors have been dedicated Lazarus
advocates from the beginning, and I feel fortunate to have worked
with Don LePan, Julia Gaunce, Mical Moser, Judith Earnshaw,
and Barbara Conolly on this project.
For permission to publish poems from Lazarus's manuscripts, I
thank the American Jewish Historical Society. For selections
from Lazarus s correspondence, I gratefully acknowledge permis-
sion from the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the
Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne Archives at the Rosary Hill
Home in Hawthorne, New York; and Morris U. Schappes. I also
thank Columbia University Press for the selections from Letters
to Emma Lazarus, ed. Ralph L. Rusk. © 1939 Columbia
University Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
12 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Emma Lazarus. Engraving from T^e Poems of Emma Lazarus, 2 vols.
(Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1888).
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Introduction
I
When Emma Lazarus published her first volume of Poems and
Translations (1866), she was just seventeen years old. Her sister
Josephine recalled that the beginning of the Civil War inspired
Emmas first lyrics, written at age eleven. This period of American
crisis was a prolific time for the young author, just as it had been
for other American poets such as Walt Whitman, Adah Isaacs
Menken, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson. The sense of
national emergency, the anxious expectation that the war would
forever change the course of American history, the vigorous public
discussions of high ideals and pragmatic plans for action, the reports
of suffering and the emergence of energetic humanitarian projects,
the draft riots that erupted in her own city in 1863, her fathers
dismay about the Union s entry into the war, and the appearance
of uncles and cousins dressed in blue uniforms all contributed to a
milieu in which a perceptive, concerned, and introspective girl felt
she must say something serious, something solemn about the events
swirling around her. So she began to write and continued writing,
never becoming uninterested in the unfolding of history, never
becoming desensitized to social catastrophes, never quite ridding
herself of this need to write. Her most straightforward encounter
with the war in Poems and Translations is an elegy for "Brevet
Brigadier-General Fred.Winthrop" (composed in 1865). Later,
Lazarus would meditate on the conflict s aftermath in poems such
as "Heroes" (1871) and "The South" (1878).
Although the war appears to have been an important early stim-
ulus to her pursuit of poetry, far more conspicuous in her early
poems and translations is the influence of her education in the clas-
sics and modern languages and literatures, including German,
French, and Italian. Lazarus was born on 22 July 1849 into a large
and distinguished Jewish family, German Jewish on her mother
Esther Nathan s side and Sephardic on her father Moses Lazarus s
side. Both the Lazarus and Nathan families had lived in New York
City since the time of the American Revolution, and Moses
Lazarus was a successful sugar refiner and prominent New York
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 15
City citizen. Biographers surmise that the Lazarus children—
Emma, three older sisters, two younger sisters, and one younger
brother—were privately tutored. The family was not especially
devout but did belong to the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue in
New York, Shearith Israel. During the summers, they spent time in
the exclusive sea-side town of Newport, Rhode Island.
Well-educated and talented with languages, Lazarus demon-
strated a remarkable aptitude for poetry and translation at an early
age, but she also yearned to know and write more. Not long after
the publication of Poems and Translations, she sent Ralph Waldo
Emerson, the great man of American letters at the time, a copy of
her book and some new poems. His response to her work was
encouraging, even enthusiastic, and he became a literary mentor
and friend. In 1874, however, she was deeply disappointed to learn
that Emerson had excluded her from his anthology, Parnassus, and
she told him so in an indignant letter (see Lazarus, to Emerson,
27 Dec. 1874, in Appendix B). Still, despite this painful slight, her
career to this point had been quite successful, particularly for such
a young writer. She published a second book of poetry in 1871,
Admetus and Other Poems, a volume that critics greeted with high
praise. And throughout the 18705, she placed dozens of poems and
translations in some of the nations most distinguished magazines
and newspapers, such as The New-York Times, The Jewish Messenger,
The Galaxy, The Independent, Lippincott's Magazine, and Scribner's
Monthly. Lazarus and Emerson later reconciled, and she visited
him in Concord at least twice more, in 1876 and 1879, before he
died in 1882. During her career, she associated and corresponded
with a variety of other important writers, thinkers, artists, and
editors as well: writers such as Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Henry
James, Ivan Turgenev, and John Burroughs (Whitmans friend);
artists such as Helen deKay Gilder; editors such as Edmund
Clarence Stedman, Richard Gilder, and Thomas Wentworth
Higginson; and intellectuals such as Henry George, Edwin R.A.
Seligman, and William James.
In addition to poetry, Lazarus published translations and crit-
icism in the magazines to which she contributed, as well as some
fiction—a short story titled "The Eleventh Hour" (1878) for
Scribner's and a novel based on Goethe's life called Alide (1874).
l6 INTRODUCTION
During this middle phase of her career, many of her most
accomplished works are her translations of French, German, and
Italian poetry, including the work of Heinrich Heine, Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, Francois Coppee, Joseph Freiherr von
Eichendorff, Nikolaus Lenau, Alfred de Musset, Giacomo
Leopardi, and Petrarch, among others. In 1881 her work as a
translator of modern European poetry peaked with a critically
acclaimed volume of the Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heme.With
encouragement from Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, Lazarus had also
begun reading and translating the greatest medieval Spanish
Hebrew poets: Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses ibn Ezra, Judah
Halevi, and Judah ben Solomon Al-Harizi. She completed her
first translations in 1877, published additional ones in The Jewish
Messenger in 1879, and eventually collected several pieces in Songs
of a Semite (1882). Although most were based on German trans-
lations, Lazarus studied Hebrew in the i88os and published two
translations from Hebrew, a poem by Al-Harizi ("Consolation,"
1883) and a quatrain by Judah Halevi (included in her essay titled
"The Poet Heine," 1884).
In the early i88os, as news of the persecution of Jews in Russia
and Eastern Europe began to appear in London and New York
newspapers, Lazarus became passionately concerned with the
fate of those fleeing the pogroms. Meeting with Jewish refugees
at the immigration center on Wards Island in 1881, Lazarus deep-
ened her political and humanitarian commitments. She worked
to provide education and decent housing for the immigrants and
urged native-born Americans (Christians and Jews) to embrace
the newly arrived. She also began to write powerful and inno-
vative poems about anti-semitism, immigration, and Jewish
history and culture. Calling her people to "rise anew"—as the
Jewish exiles had against the Babylonians or as the Maccabees
had against the Seleucids—Lazarus imagined a new future for
Jewish people in the U.S. and in a to-be-resettled Jewish
Palestine. As she celebrated the Jewish past and future, she also
condemned Christian hypocrisy and cruelty—often allegorically,
as in "The Guardian of the Red Disk" (first published in 1880),
a poem whose speaker is a Jew-hating citizen of Malta, or in The
Dance to Death (1882), a play whose anti-semitic villains massacre
SELECTE D POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 17
a Jewish community in Nordhausen, Germany, during a 1349
panic about the plague. Many of these poems, including the verse
tragedy The Dance to Death and the translations of Heine's verse
and medieval Spanish Hebrew poetry, appear in Songs of a Semite,
her final and most important book. Lazarus was also writing
essays about these issues for the mainstream Century Magazine
and The American Hebrew, a Jewish weekly. In her article "Russian
Christianity versus Modern Judaism" (1882), she rebutted Mme.
Z. Ragozin's anti-semitic arguments excusing the persecutions
in Russia (see Appendix D). In "An Epistle to the Hebrews"
(1882-83) and "The Jewish Problem" (1883), Lazarus developed
her thoughts about the establishment of a Jewish state in
Palestine as a haven for Jews fleeing persecution.
In the summer of 1883, Lazarus made the first of her trips to
Europe.The journey's purpose was partly personal—a chance to
see the art and architecture of France and England and an oppor-
tunity to meet England's most distinguished writers, including
Robert Browning and William Morris. The visit would also be
a political one—an attempt to gather support for her ideas about
the resettlement of Jewish exiles in Palestine. When she returned
to the U.S. in September, she remained an active public voice on
matters related to Jewish concerns, immigration, and the arts. In
November a committee working to raise money for a pedestal
for the Statue of Liberty asked her to write a poem as part of a
fund-raising campaign. Though reluctant at first, she eventually
agreed after thinking about the Russian refugees who came to
the U.S. through the New York harbor in search of freedom. Her
most famous poem, "The New Colossus," was publicly read at
an auction on 3 December and again at the official dedication
ceremony on 28 October 1886.
In 1884 Lazarus suffered a major illness and became much less
active. Her father also grew gravely ill that year, passing away in
March 1885. According to Josephine Lazarus, his death was a
major blow to Emma: "Never afterwards did she find complete
and spontaneous expression" (see Appendix A). Perhaps as a way
to work through their grief, the Lazarus sisters arranged a trip to
Europe, visiting the Netherlands, England, France, and Italy from
May 1885 until September 1887.
18 INTRODUCTION
Although Emma's spirits did improve during this second
European tour, she eventually grew ill again. In July 1887, after
struggling with cancer for many months, she returned to New
York, where she died in November. Although she was a some-
times controversial figure—for championing the immigrants'
cause and the idea of a Jewish Palestine—American writers and
the Jewish community honored her at her death by lauding her
political, humanitarian, and literary accomplishments. She was
widely celebrated as the greatest Jewish poet of the century and
as a symbol of Jewish and American identity, Jewish- American
identity in which neither is lost within the other.
2
Lazarus s poetic range was wide, and she composed in a number
of different forms—blank verse tragedies, songs, ballads and hymns,
sonnets, ottava rima, dramatic monologues, impressionistic mood
pieces, poem cycles, narrative poems. Influenced by the Bible as
well as by innovative French poetry of the era, she wrote prose
poems that read as if they are modern adaptations of an ancient
scriptural style; and these prose poems are an important, if often
overlooked, formal development in late nineteenth-century
American prosody. Lazarus also published fiction, literary criticism,
theatre reviews, political essays, and articles on Jewish history and
culture. In terms of subject matter, her range is similarly expansive.
She produced a considerable body of important Jewish-themed
work, but throughout her career she also published numerous
poems that treat nature, mythology, music, art, romantic love,
women's identity, personal and occasional topics, as well as
contemporary events (such the death of the French Prince
Imperial in "Destiny," 1879) and contemporary ideas (such as
Henry George's socialist economics in "Progress and Poverty,"
1881). International and cross-cultural in her perspective, Lazarus
was also a notable translator. In short, a survey of Lazarus s literary
career suggests that it is difficult to pigeonhole her as a writer.
Nevertheless, Lazarus continues to be best-known for just one
poem,"The New Colossus," the sonnet about the Statue of Liberty
in which the "mighty woman" holding the light of liberty tells the
world:
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 19
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-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
These lines remain an enduring part of American memory and
identity. In some respects, however, the sonnet's success was
surprising. The poem's pro-immigration stand and its image of
America as a nation that welcomes impoverished, persecuted, or
homeless immigrants from all over the globe were in direct
conflict with widespread anti-immigration feeling in the U.S. In
the year before she composed the poem, the federal government
had enacted its first-ever major piece of legislation to restrict
immigration, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Other anti-
immigration laws would follow. So would anti-immigration
violence. So would racist propaganda directed at various immi-
grant groups, including The American Jew (1888), an invective
anonymously authored by Telemachus Thomas Timayenis (a
Greek immigrant!) and directed in particular against the Eastern
European and Russian Jewish immigrants about whom Lazarus
was so concerned (see Appendix D). Returned to this context,
it is clear that "The New Colossus" is hardly a mere repetition
of the notion of America as a land of immigrants. Instead, her
poem is a politically-motivated effort at myth-making during a
surge of anti-immigration sentiment. It is an active attempt to
identify Americans' self-conception with the plight of the immi-
grant outsider in search of freedom, a self-conception markedly
at odds with reigning sentiment.
"The New Colossus" is, furthermore, not simply a poem that
invites Jews and other immigrants to become part of America, but
also one that makes America a part of Jewish history. ShiraWolosky
has perceptively illuminated this interpretation of the poem by
drawing attention to the poem's lamp imagery (which appears
with Jewish connotations elsewhere in Lazarus's poetry), the
Statue's resemblance to the biblical Deborah, and the comparison
of the Statue to the Greek Colossus of Rhodes (the Hebraic is
contrasted with the Hellenic throughout Lazarus's work). In its
2O INTRODUCTION
companion piece written about the same time, "1492," Lazarus
uses this "two-faced year," which saw the expulsion of the Jews
from Spain and Christopher Columbus s landing in the Americas,
to make, inWolosky's words, "the discovery of America an event
in Jewish history" (115). Like Whitman and other American
Renaissance authors, Lazarus is a passionate creator and defender
of American identity and culture. Yet the way she imagines
American identity in terms of exile and Jewish history is distinc-
tive, quite unlike any other nineteenth-century American author.
If Americas embrace of "The New Colossus" is surprising,
Lazarus's own understanding of America and freedom in terms
of Jewish ideals, history, and culture is not. Although some critics
have represented her as uninterested in Jewish life until the crises
of the i88os, her 1867 poem "In the Jewish Synagogue at
Newport" and her translations of Gabirol and Judah Halevi in the
i8yos suggest that Lazarus actually had a life-long interest in
Jewish culture. Her engagement with that culture evolved and
intensified over the course of her life, and the events in Russia in
1881 and her study of Jewish history made her later Jewish-
themed work more impassioned, deepening (rather than initiat-
ing) her commitment to Jewish life. In poems like "The New
Year" (1882) and "The Feast of Lights" (1882), Lazarus commem-
orates traditional holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah. In
poems like "The World's Justice" (1882), "The Choice" (1884),
"The Supreme Sacrifice" (1884), and "Gifts" (1885), she attempts
to define what distinguishes the Jewish people and their traditions
from other traditions. What Lazarus highlights in these poems is
the Jewish commitment to truth, the "lamp" of God s law as an
enduring guide, and an understanding of the meaning of Jewish
suffering and survival in terms of dedication to that truth.
Although Lazarus s Jewish poems are typically intellectual and
historical, one of their most remarkable features is their intensity.
In "The Feast of Lights," for example, Lazarus doesn't simply cele-
brate the restoration of the temple and quietly meditate on the
meaning of the Menorah s lighting, but issues a forceful, revolu-
tionary call for guerilla fighters like the Maccabees, "lion-warriors
of the Lord." Her own poem is in fact one of the "hymns of
victory" she wants sung until "The Maccabean spirit leapfs] new-
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 21
born!"This revolutionary rhetoric manifests itself most promi-
nently in the poems which extol Jewish reformers and insurgents
like Ezekiel, Ezra, the Maccabees, and Bar Kokhba. Similarly
intense is Lazarus s resistance to anti-semitism—in "The Crowing
of the Red Cock" (1882), for example, where she explicitly links
the violence of the pogroms to Christianity's history of hatred
and bloodshed and "the long roll of Christian guilt."
In other poems, however, her reproach to anti-semitism is
somewhat less direct. In "The Guardian of the Red Disk,"
Lazarus creates a persona who heartily endorses institutionalized
hatred of Jewish people in order to provide a view of the way
anti-semitism functions in society and the psyche. In this
dramatic monologue, "Spoken by a Citizen of Malta," the narra-
tor describes with admiration the Lord Bishop of Malta, "The
Guardian of the Red Disk." Because the Jews, as the speaker
explains, "so infest the isle," some way was needed "to protect /
From the degrading contact Christian folk ."The Bishop's plan is
to imprint on the face of every Jew a "Red Disk," a "scarlet stamp
of separateness, of shame." This public mark of Jewish identity,
legislated by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, allows
Christians to "breathe freely now, not fearing taint," while
encouraging children to mistreat those marked with the red disk:
"When one appears therewith, the urchins know / Good sport s
at hand; they fling their stones and mud." The most important
result of the marking is, according to the speaker, its humiliation
of the Jews. The poem does not directly express outrage about
anti-semitism, but works ironically through the viewpoint of the
oppressor, who refers to the Jewish as "vermin" and remains
extravagantly untouched by their suffering.The poem condemns
the speaker merely by revealing his feelings: his hatred, disgust,
devotion to a leader, paranoid anxiety with "infection" by others,
and sadistic glee in seeing others controlled and humiliated.
Moreover, the poem reveals how these emotional bonds of iden-
tification with the leader and disidentification with the marked
Jews construct the speaker's own sense of identity and belong-
ing. Anti-semitic hatred allows him to feel and know himself to
be a "citizen of Malta." In other words, the poem doesn't call for
revolutionary action or promote sympathy for those who suffer.
22 INTRODUCTION
Instead, Lazarus s aim is to bring key social and psychic aspects
of anti-semi tic feeling under scrutiny.
Particularly in the last decade of her career, Lazarus was deeply
concerned with the spread of anti-semitism and the widespread
misunderstanding of Jewish history and culture. She was appalled
that even those who felt sympathetic to Jewish causes could be
so uninformed about Jewish culture and yet feel unconstrained
in their pronouncements about it. When, for example, Frances
Power Cobbe (a British feminist writer who positioned herself
as deeply sympathetic with Jewish tradition and Jewish concerns)
tossed off assertions that suggested that Christianity possessed, in
comparison to Judaism, an especially kind regard for animals and
an especially ardent set of religious affections, Lazarus felt
compelled not so much to attack as to correct Cobbe s claims
(see "Epistle to the Hebrews").While she was not so naive as to
expect that most Gentiles, or even most Jews, would be well-
educated about Jewish history and culture, her frustration and
amusement are clear in her anecdote about an acquaintance from
Boston whose obliviousness to the authorship of the Bible allows
her to insist that there is no Jewish literature (also in "Epistle to
the Hebrews"). One of the ways she attempted to confront such
ignorance and misunderstanding was by using her writings to
provide historical information.
Her approaches to history, however, were quite diverse. In a
poem like "Arabesque" (1877), for instance, she attempts to pres-
ent a view of history that steps outside the Christian-centered
view (so dominant in U.S. culture) by evoking a feeling for the
value of the art and culture of a different civilization, in this case
late Muslim Granada. She idealizes its rich diversity and sensu-
ousness, laments its passing, and by doing so offers it up as an
alternative cultural aesthetic, an alternative to the "befooled"
European Christian culture that displaced it and an alternative
to modern aesthetics as well.
In other historical poems, Lazarus draws readers' attention not
so much to an era as to a particular historical document. In some
respects her translations of Gabirol, Judah Halevi, ibn Ezra, and
Al-Harizi are efforts to recover their texts for an English-reading
audience and make their verse a part of the remembered past. A
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 23
slightly different act of historical recovery happens in "An Epistle
from Joshua IbnVives of Allorqui" (1882). Here Lazarus transforms
a fifteenth-century letter into 34 stanzas of ottava rima (stanzas of
eight-lines rhymed abababcc). In this letter to a former Rabbi who
has converted to Christianity and taken to authoring attacks on
Judaism,Joshua IbnVives asks his former teacher to enlighten him
about the possible reasons for this conversion. The student's atti-
tude is deferential and modest, but the letter itself functions as a
critique of the conversion, the motivations for it, the altogether
false explanations of it, and, more generally, the hypocrisy it signi-
fies. To highlight the situations irony, Lazarus adroitly turns to
ottava rima, a stanzaic form in English poetry that often uses the
final couplet to surprise or amuse readers with an ironic turn (as
in Byron's Don Juan [1819-24] most notably); in the final couplet
of stanza XXVI, for example, Joshua Ibn Vives describes the
Christian "God of Love" as:
Meek-faced, dove-eyed, pure-browed, the Lord of life,
Know him and kneel, else at your throat the knife!
"An Epistle" is not a retelling of a story inspired by legends or
historical events, as with many of her other poems ("Raschi in
Prague," 1880, for example). Instead, the poem is (about) the
historical document itself. Lazarus transfigures the letter into
verse to direct attention to the document and the overlooked
history it reveals, but also to highlight the language of the docu-
ment itself. In this respect, her use of historical documents
perhaps resembles Susan Howe's deployment of manuscripts
from the C.S. Pierce archives in Fierce-Arrow (1999) or Adrienne
Rich's reproduction of a telegram, a letter from Coleridge, or a
comment from the Nixon tapes. Although it pursues fascist ideas
far different from Lazarus's own political project, Ezra Pound's
The Cantos (1919-70) is another important American poem that
not only alludes to past events, but also re-presents vital selec-
tions from the historical archive in verse.
Lazarus s aim in other historical poems is less documentary: she
simply recovers a particular episode from the past for cultural
memory. Her purpose is to present and contextualize a specific
24 INTRODUCTION
historical event and to imagine the personal dynamics of the partic-
ipants. The Dance to Death dramatizes an event from Germany in
May 1348—the mass execution by fire of a village's Jewish popu-
lation. The verse drama begins with the arrival of Rabbi Cresselin
and his warning that the Jews of Nordhausen should flee or face
death by fire. His message might be seen as prophecy because it is
a message delivered by God's angel in a dream. On the other hand,
Rabbi Cresselin's monologue and its list of persecutions from four-
teenth-century French and German history suggest that the warn-
ing is also a reasonable prediction based on past events. From one
perspective, so is The Dance to Death: the play brings into focus the
parallels between the persecution of Jews in the Middle Ages and
the outbreaks of anti-semitism across nineteenth-century Europe.
The history presented here is not only a warning, however, but also
a guide for conduct in the face of religious and ethnic persecution.
Although Siisskind von Orb's behavior is sometimes suspect and
Liebhaid s identity as a Jew ambiguous, Liebhaid s allegiance to her
family and religion are, for Lazarus, an inspiring ideal in the face of
contemporary threats.
Several of Lazarus s historical poems evoke heroic virtues, such
as Liebhaid s loyalty, or depict heroic Jewish characters. Sometimes
these heroes are intellectuals, such as Raschi (usually spelled
Rashi) from "Raschi in Prague" or the catalog of thinkers and
writers named in "The Prophet," the sixth of her "Little Poems
in Prose" from "By the Waters of Babylon" (1887). In other
poems, they are militants like the Maccabees from "The Banner
of the Jew" or Bar Kochba from the poem of the same name
(published in 1884). Although these characters were real histori-
cal persons, Lazarus does not treat them in a realistic fashion as
complex, flawed human beings. Instead, by deploying larger-than-
life characters, these heroic poems encourage readers to approach
the Jewish past with a sense of awe and wonder. The history of
the Jews, as Lazarus sees it, has been largely forgotten, and this
absence of historical knowledge makes it easier for writers like
Ragozin andTimayenis to put forward their anti-semitic claims.
She is also concerned that, as minorities, Jews face pressure to
conform to dominant ideas, even if those ideas threaten one's
freedom or existence, even if those ideas seem patently false.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 25
Learning about the Jewish past is, for Lazarus, one way Jews might
resist pressures to conform and find alternatives to resigning
themselves to ideological domination. The circulation of such
historical knowledge might also help combat the images and
ideologies that feed the proliferation of anti-semitic discourse. In
other words, these heroic poems are in some respects history
lessons Lazarus doesn't want neglected. Thus, her heroes are not
psychologically intricate, but compelling, idealized figures
designed to carry historical knowledge in a memorable fashion.
Their purpose is to inspire admiration and respect for Jewish
history and culture and perhaps stimulate interest in further study.
Throughout her career, from her earliest poems until her
death, this kind of heroic emphasis appears in several of Lazarus's
works, and it can make those poems seem patriotic. Some of
Lazarus's critics, even her sympathetic critics, have thus seen her
work as powerful but aesthetically unambitious and emotionally
uncomplicated. Bette Roth Young has persuasively highlighted
the ways in which Lazarus's work could be seen as chauvinistic.
Though emphasizing different aspects of her work, other critics
have also treated Lazarus as a writer of emotional power but not
sophistication or artistic vision. Josephine Lazarus characterizes
her sister's attitude toward her own writing as deeply modest and
ladylike: "Emma Lazarus was a true woman, too distinctly femi-
nine to "wish to be exceptional, or to stand alone and apart, even
by virtue of superiority" (see Appendix A). And DanVogel calls
Lazarus a sentimental writer and summarizes her significance to
literary history in a patronizing (and sentimental) manner:
Her images are not metaphysical; her paradoxes are not
clever. She is devoid of ambiguities She belongs in that
special section of the Poets' Valhalla reserved for those who
are beloved more than studied.... she is the spokesman not
of the head, but of the heart, where, in addition to love,
courage resides. (162)
Perhaps less condescendingly, one might say that Lazarus's work
is at times affectively sympathetic, though always with a specific
purpose. This affective sympathy manifests itself as patriotism (the
26 INTRODUCTION
expression of an emotional alliance with a group or nation) in
works where she utilizes emotion to capture and focus the atten-
tion of readers to teach history, as in "Bar Kochba," for example.
In other places, affective sympathy appears as sentimentalism (the
representation of emotional bonding among individuals), as in
Reuben's request to hold his father s hand during their execution
in The Dance to Death (Act 5, Scene i). In such instances, the
poetry appeals to readers' emotions, especially sympathy for those
who suffer, in order to consolidate a sense of moral protest. Yet
Lazarus s poetry is not simply patriotic or typically sentimental,
and her interest in emotion takes a variety of other forms as well.
In poems such as "Moods" (1875) and "Epochs" (1871), for exam-
ple, she attempts to describe certain emotions and trace the differ-
ences or transitions between affective states. In others she attempts
to represent specific feelings: the sublime awe of an encounter
with the ocean in "Off Rough Point" (1877), erotic interest in
"Assurance" (c. 1880?) and "Leda & the Swan" (1878), jealous
despair in "Clytie" (1866), cognitive dissonance and fear in "A
Masque of Venice" (1886), and so on.These poems do not aim to
stimulate an affective response from readers in order to secure a
particular moral, historical, or political perspective. Instead, for
purposes that appear to be simply aesthetic, they attempt to repre-
sent the elusiveness and ambiguity of the emotions themselves.
This interest in emotions—the nature of certain emotions,
their mutability, and their functions within certain poems—is
closely connected to Lazarus s exploration of the arts, one of the
major themes in her work. In "Life and Art" (1882), she suggests
that the artist does not or perhaps cannot create art while affec-
tively enthralled. "Life is his poem then," she writes. After the
emotional disruption has passed, however, it is the memory of
the experience of those emotions that becomes the basis for
artistic creation. In her many poems on art, she reflects on the
nature of art in general, as in "Life and Art." Elsewhere she repre-
sents particular works of art by translating the experience of the
artwork into verse. In poems like "Phantasies" (1874),"Chopin"
(1879), and "Symphonic Studies" (1878), Lazarus uses figurative
language, image, rhythm, and sound to linguistically construct
perceptions of Chopin's and Schumann's music.Yet these poems
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 2J
are not so much descriptions of the music itself as subjective,
mediated, affectively charged accounts of the experience of
listening to music—representations of the response to changes
in pitch, volume, tempo, and timbre, and the way consciousness
processes those sounds.These poems do not convert Schumann's
or Chopin's music directly into a specific meaning or interpre-
tation. Instead, they prolong the enjoyment of the music; they
extend in a different form the conversation the music began.
Along with music, literature is the art about which Lazarus
most often writes. "To R.W.E." (1884) and "The Venus of the
Louvre" (1884), for example, are personal, elegiac sonnets about
the two authors who most influenced her own work: Emerson
and Heine. The poems view these writers in a personal and
elegiac fashion. Although the perspective is biographical in each
poem (and thus they might perhaps be read alongside her essays
"Emerson's Personality" [1882] and "The Poet Heine"), Lazarus
takes quite different approaches to each life.The Emerson poem
affectionately recalls in a general way his wisdom and parental
kindness. "The Venus of the Louvre," on the other hand, which
is just as much about the ancient Greek sculpture The Venus de
Milo and Lazarus s own encounter with Greek art as it is about
Heine, recalls jus t a single scene from Heine's long and excruci-
ating final illness, his visit to the Venus de Milo.
Like Heine, Lazarus drew inspiration from legends and myth,
particularly Classical Western myth and ancient and medieval
Hebrew literature, stories of "vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain," as
she writes in "The Venus of the Louvre." And, throughout her
career, Lazarus made new poems out of ancient myths. "Clytie,"
authored at age sixteen, takes a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses and
transforms a relatively minor character into her own poem's
passionate, despairing speaker. In the iSyos and i88os, Lazarus regu-
larly returns to legends from Greek, Roman, German, Jewish, and
even Native American lore for materials for her poetry. In "The
Cranes of Ibycus,"for example, the story of the Greek poet Ibycus
becomes the occasion for a weird and beautiful poem that uses the
legend to pull together some of the nineteenth-century's (and
Lazarus s) most enduring concerns: nature, poetry, and death. In
1878, using a Miwok creation story, Lazarus worked on a poem,
28 INTRODUCTION
"The Creation of Man." No doubt prompted by Longfellow's The
Song of Hiawatha (1855) in her choice of meter, she re-tells a story
about the origin of humanity in an incantatory trochaic tetrame-
ter ("In the valhj ofAwani" for example, or "Man had not been fash-
ioned yet'' where a final unstressed syllable is simply dropped in
order to end the line with rhythmic emphasis).The poem's central
figure is not "man," however, but the clever and creative coyote.
Like the coyote, the poem is both flawed and funny ironic and seri-
ous, and it is an important example of Lazarus's interest in American
and Native American materials. Despite her sympathy with and
interest in American Indian materials, the poem is also racist, and
her specific knowledge of Miwok culture may have been limited
to Stephen Powers s Tribes of California (1877) .Yet "The Creation of
Man" is also an unpolished, unfinished, and (before now) never
published poem, though her correspondence and her inclusion of
the piece in her manuscript book of favorite poems indicate she
took delight in the subject. Six years later, Lazarus would return to
the subject, this time re-working an analogous "Legend from the
Talmud," in a poem called "The Birth of Man" (1884).
Lazarus s enduring, cross-cultural interest in ancient myth and
her fascination with Romantic music offer some clues, perhaps,
to the reasons for Lazarus's neglect. The most common version
of American literary history tends to associate the post-Civil War
era with novelistic realism and naturalism.Yet literary realism, as
it is typically understood, was not one Lazarus's various passions.
She seemed to draw inspiration from Classical literature, Judaic
tradition, and Romantic art rather than from influential contem-
poraries, like friend and novelist Henry James, though, of course,
few writers inspired her more than another realist novelist,
George Eliot. Still, even if she found in Eliot a superb model for
what it means to be an engaged and intellectual woman writer,
even if she appreciated Eliot's interest in Jewish history and the
prospects for a Jewish state, Lazarus's primary commitment was
to poetry, not fiction, despite her two attempts at it during the
18705, neither particularly realistic or successful. She was more in
love with the other-worldliness of "elf-music," as she suggests in
"Echoes" (1880), or the lost world of Muslim Spain, as in
"Arabesque," than with realism, naturalism, or the novel.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 29
Thus, in some respects, Lazarus's writings appear to be out of
sync with the dominant trends used to describe the most impor-
tant developments in late nineteenth-century American literary
history. She is the most important Jewish American writer of the
nineteenth century and one of the most talented American poets
writing between Whitman and Dickinson and the modernists .Yet
she remains vastly under-studied and under-appreciated, in part
because her work and interests appear to be at odds with the stan-
dard account of the history of American literature. Nevertheless,
it seems, this account also reduces the actual diversity and accom-
plishment of American writing of the period in its too eager
anticipation of canonical modernism. Although the modernist
revolution in American poetry is an extraordinarily important and
influential turn in the literary history of the U.S., one of its more
unfortunate consequences has been the effective denigration of
the generation of poets that preceded it. In order to dramatize the
ways they would "make it new," to quote Pounds famous injunc-
tion to modernist poets (an injunction that he borrowed from
Confucius!), the modernists often characterized late nineteenth-
century poetry as conventional and tradition-bound, in sharp
contrast to their own "modern," avant-garde work. Yet the cata-
clysmic approach to literary history, in which 1900 or 1910 or
thereabouts demarcates a stark divide in the history of poetry, fails
to appreciate the innovations of the late nineteenth century, such
as Lazarus's prose poems, for example. We should also perhaps
remember that the modernists (H.D. and Pound, for example)
were as obsessed with past literary traditions as Lazarus: the avant-
garde intention to create a "new," boundary-breaking literary
work has always required a serious engagement with and educa-
tion in the literary past. Thus it is not surprising to find poetic
innovation alongside references to literature s past in both the
work of the modernists and Lazarus.
Moreover, Lazarus's evasion of novelistic realism, her fascination
with art and myth, and her ardent engagement with literary
history and Jewish tradition were never indications of a withdrawal
from the artistic, moral, and political concerns of her period. In
light of her vigorous engagement with contemporary ideas and
issues, both the form and content of her writings are carefully
30 INTRODUCTION
linked to her political and humanitarian concerns about Jewish
persecution, anti-semitism, immigration, and the creation of an
independent Jewish nation in the Near East. "The New Ezekiel"
(1883), for example, turns to an ancient historical figure not to
withdraw into a legendary past, but to articulate a contemporary
political idea—the creation of an independent Jewish nation in
Palestine, i.e. "Zionism"—before Theodore Herzl introduced the
term in the 18905. Likewise, a poem like "Don Pedrillo" (first
published in 1876) is as much about contemporary anti-semitism
as anti-Jewish prejudice in early modern Spain. Seen from this
perspective, Lazarus s fascination with the past is also her engage-
ment with a complex and troubling present.
Thus, however indebted to past traditions, Lazarus was very
much a poet of her own historical moment. As a poet of
American and international Jewish literary traditions, a writer
who was proud to "possess the double cosmopolitanism of the
American and the Jew" (as she put it in "An Epistle to the
Hebrews"), she might also be a compelling and important poet
for readers in the twenty-first century. The renewed critical
attention afforded previously neglected American women prose
writers of the nineteenth century appears to be spreading to
poets, and interest in Jewish literature is also expanding.
Moreover, ideas and concerns that preoccupy postmodern poetry
and criticism can also be found in Lazarus s writings. Working
with translation, formal prosodies, and recreations and recombi-
nations of literary forms, she explores history as a scene for inter-
preting contemporary situations, poetry as a witness to barbarism
and cruelty, poetry as a political instrument, and literature as a
vehicle for performing and exploring ethnic and national iden-
tities. These are some of the thematic and formal concerns that
have shaped much recent poetry and recent interest in poetry,
which is perhaps another indication that the time for a more
careful consideration of Lazarus s work is now.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 3!
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Emma Lazarus: A Brief Chronology
1849 Lazarus born. Zachary Taylor is President.
1861 Begins writing poetry. Civil War begins.
1865 Civil War ends. Lincoln assassinated.
1866 Publishes Poems and Translations.
1867 A second edition of Poems and Translations appears.
1868 Begins friendship and correspondence with
Emerson.
1869 Writes "Long Island Sound."
1871 Publishes Admetus and Other Poems.
1872 Begins contributing poems on a regular basis to
Lippincott's Magazine.
1874 Mother, Esther Nathan Lazarus, dies. Publishes her
only novel, Alide.
1876 Publishes her first drama, The Spagnoletto.The
United States celebrates its centennial. George Eliot
publishes Daniel Deronda.
1877 Begins translating the work of the great medieval
Spanish Hebrew poets.
1878 Publishes a short story, "The Eleventh Hour," in
Scribner's Monthly.
1879 Several translations of medieval Spanish Hebrew
poets appear in The Jewish Messenger.
1880 Publishes "Raschi in Prague" in The Independent.
1881 Her translation of the Poems and Ballads of
Heinrich Heine appears. News of the persecution
of Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe arrives in
the United States, as do thousands of Russian
Jewish immigrants. Visits immigrants at Wards
Island and becomes actively involved in immigrant
relief work.
1882 Responds energetically to anti-semitic article
justifying the pogroms, one of several Jewish-
themed essays for The Century Magazine and The
American Hebrew published in 1882 and 1883. Begins
studying Hebrew. Publishes Songs of a Semite.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 33
Becomes convinced of need for establishment of
Jewish nation in Palestine.
1883 Publishes first translation from the Hebrew. Travels
to France and England. Meets Browning and
Morris. Returns to the United States. Writes poem
about the Statue of Liberty, "The New Colossus."
1884 Continues to contribute poems and essays to The
Century Magazine and The American Hebrew. Suffers
first major illness.
1885 Her father, Moses Lazarus, dies. Begins extended
visit to the Netherlands, Italy, France, and England.
1886 Statue of Liberty is officially dedicated on 28
October at a ceremony which includes President
Grover Cleveland.
1887 Becomes gravely ill. Returns from Europe to the
United States. Dies in New York City on
November 19.
34 EMMA LAZARUS: A BRIEF CHRONOLOGY
A Note on the Texts
This Broadview Literary Texts edition of Lazarus s Selected Poems
and Other Writings presents the full text of Songs of a Semite, a
selection of her other poems and translations, and seven essays.
Whenever possible, the texts here are from editions prepared
with Lazarus s participation. For poems and essays published but
never collected in a book during her lifetime, the earliest peri-
odical publication of the text has, in general, been preferred.
Because of damage to the original periodical, this has not been
feasible for "An Epistle to the Hebrews. V," and a later printing
has been selected. For poems not published during her lifetime,
manuscript sources were used only for poems not printed in The
Poems of Emma Lazarus (1888).
In general, Lazarus s texts are presented here without change,
although typographical and printer s errors have been corrected.
The stage directions in The Dance to Death have sometimes been
slightly altered, usually by the addition of parentheses, for consis-
tency. The essays have been abridged for the sake of space and
readability. In the nineteenth century, as in the present, the names
of medieval Spanish Hebrew poets have various English translit-
erations. The spelling of these names in the Introduction and
notes follows the usage of the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Lazarus s own
spelling of these names changes during her career. Nevertheless,
I have not altered the spelling of these names in her texts, except
in two cases that appear to be the mistakes of editors at The
Century Magazine: Ibu Ezra (page 246, line 4, in "By the Waters
of Babylon"); Ibu Ezra (page 285, line 28, in "The Poet Heine").
Below is a list of abbreviations and sources of the texts included
in this volume.
Abbreviations:
Admetus = Admetus and Other Poems. New York: Hurd and
Houghton, 1871.
AH = The American Hebrew.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 35
Century = The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine; The
Century Magazine.
Critic = The Critic; The Critic and Good Literature.
LM = Lippincott's Magazine.
ms = Manuscript Notebook of Poetry, Emma Lazarus
Papers, American Jewish Historical Society,
Waltham, Mass, and New York.
Heine = Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine, New York: R.
Worthington, 1881.
JM = The Jewish Messenger.
NYT = The New-York Times.
Poems — The Poems of Emma Lazarus, 2 vols. Boston and New
York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1888.
P&T = Poems and Translations. New York: Hurd and
Houghton, 1867.
SM = Scribner's Monthly.
Links: P&T, 34.
Clyde: P&T, 66-68.
Long Island Sound: Poems, 1:211-12.
Epochs [I-VII, XVI]:Admetus, 137-43,
 T
5
2
-
In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport: Admetus, 160-62.
Heroes: Admetus, 182-85.
Phantasies: LM (Aug. 1874): 221-25.
Moods: LM (Sept. 1875): 283.
Translations from the French of Francois Coppee: LM (Jan.
1877): 25-26.
Arabesque: The Galaxy (July 1877): 70.
The Cranes of Ibycus: Poems, 1:214.
Off Rough Point: SM (Dec. 1877): 254.
Leda & the Swan: ms, Jan. 1878, leaf 61.
The South: LM (Jan. 1878): 97-98.
Symphonic Studies: LM (Nov. 1878): 568-70.
The Creation of Man: ms, Feb. 1879, leaves 89-97.
A Letter, From Judah Hallevi to His Friend Isaac :JM (7 Feb.
1879): i.
Chopin: NYT (2 March 1879): 4.
Night-Piece:JM (18 April 1879): i.
36 A NOTE ON THE TEXTS
Destiny: SM (Sept. 1879): 751.
The Taming of the Falcon: SM (Dec. 1879): 196.
Raschi in Prague: The Independent (25 March 1880): 27-28.
Assurance: ms, n.d., leaf 19.
Echoes: Poems, 1:201.
Morphine: Heine, 49.
Homeward Bound [LXV]: Heine, in.
The Asra: Heine, 158-59.
Song: Heine, 161.
An Apparition in the Sea: Heine, 187-90.
Question: Heine, 215-16.
City Visions: Poems, i: 219-20.
Progress and Poverty: NYT (2 Oct.i88i): 3.
Lauras Death: NYT (3 Nov.i88i): 12.
Triumph of Love: Poems, 2:230.
Songs of a Semite: Songs of a Semite: The Dance to Death, and Other
Poems. New York: The American Hebrew, 1882.
An Epistle from Joshua IbnVives ofAllorqui: AH (16 June 1882):
54-55-
The Worlds Justice: JM (10 Nov. 1882): i.
The Feast of Lights: AH (8 Dec. 1882): 38.
Life and Art: Critic (16 Dec. 1882): 343.
The New Ezekiel: AH" (19 Jan. 1883): in.
Consolation: AH (ii May 1883): 147.
The New Colossus: Poems, 1:202-03.
1492: Poems, 2:22-23.
Critic and Poet: Critic (5 Jan. 1884): 4.
The Choice: AH (25 April 1884): 162.
The Supreme Sacrifice: AH (2 May 1884): 178.
The Birth of Man: Century (June 1884): 201-2.
To R.W.E.: Critic (2 Aug. 1884): 55-56.
Bar Kochba: AH, (14 Nov. 1884): 2.
The Venus of the Louvre: Century (Dec. 1884): 210.
Gifts: Century (Nov. 1885): 59.
Admonition: Hymns and Anthems, Adapted for Jewish Worship,
selected and arranged by Gustav Gottheil. New York, 1887.46.
By the Waters of Babylon. Little Poems in Prose: Century (March
1887): 801-3.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 37
A Masque ofVenice: AH (9 Dec. 1887): 67.
Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism: Century (May 1882):
48, 55-56 [48-56].
Emerson's Personality: Century (July 1882): 454-56.
An Epistle to the Hebrews. V: An Epistle to the Hebrews (New
York: Federation of American Zionists, 1900): 27-30 [27-31].
An Epistle to the Hebrews. XII: AH (26 Jan. 1883): 125.
The Jewish Problem: Century (Feb. 1883): 602-611.
The Poet Heine: Century (Dec. 1884): 210-12,215-17 [210-217].
A Day in Surrey with William Morris: Century (July 1886):
391-92,394-96 [388-97].
38 A NOTE ON THE TEXTS
EMM A LAZARUS:
SELECTE D POEMS AND
OTHER WRITINGS
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From Poems and Translations (1866)
Links.
The little and the great are joined in one
By God's great force. The wondrous golden sun
Is linked unto the glow-worm s tiny spark;
The eagle soars to heaven in his flight;
And in those realms of space, all bathed in light, 5
Soar none except the eagle and the lark.
April 6th, 1865.
Clytie.
1
For nine full weary days I have not moved,
But taken on the cold gray ground my seat.
Apollo, oh look down upon my love,
Look down and bless me with the dazzling light
Of thy bright face so marvelously fair. 5
Take pity on me, O thou glorious god!
Thou lookest down with those great lustrous eyes
Upon the meanest of the things of earth.
Thou kissest tenderly the quivering leaves,
That gleam and glow atremble neath thy touch. 10
Thou crownest with thy beams each azure wave,
And brightenest e'en the spearlets of the grass:
My love alone thou ever dost disdain.
I sit and pine here, lonely on the ground,
My drink the globed dew-drops, or my tears, 15
My bitter, bitter, ever-flowing tears.
Pensive I follow all the day thy course,
And watch and wait and weep and yearn and pray.
1
 Clytie is a nymph who falls deeply, jealously in love with Apollo. For nine days, with-
out eating or drinking, she sits on the ground, gazes at the sun, and pines away. Her
love remains unrequited, and finally she is transformed into a sunflower. See Ovid,
Metamorphoses 4.190-273.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 4!
And when I see thee sink unto thy rest,
20 With all the amber-hued and rosy-tinged,
And royal-purple clouds around thy couch,
And every hill-top with thy light afire,
And every streamlet like a trail of flame,
And every daisy with the rose's blush,
25 Beneath the ardor of thy glowing glance,
Then know I that e'en this, my single joy—
The sight of thee—is gone for weary hours.
All night I wait, and heed not on my head
The chill damp dews, or e'en the falling rains,
30 That drop upon my streaming yellow hair.
Alone beneath the stars I dream of thee—
The thousand, thousand stars so bright and fair,
That gleam so purely on the field of night.
They shine upon me with a softer ray,
35 They look upon me far more tenderly,
And sometimes e'en I think they weep for me;
And yet, Apollo, all their million worlds
I would not give for thee and for thy love.
Alone beneath the stars I dream of thee,
40 Until upon the farthest eastern sky
I see gray lines, and then a pale white streak,
And then a milky opening of light,
And then a rosy flush upon the brow
Of fair Aurora, whom I envy so;
45 And then each dull gray cloud is edged with gold,
A border rich that feathers toward the sky
Of paly blue, and then with such a burst
Of dazzling radiance, such a wondrous gleam
Of blinding light, that all my pulses thrill,
50 That my heart throbs, my tearful eyes grow bright,
And my sad mouth half breaks into a smile,
Then doth thy form arise above the hills,
The mist-bathed hills erst cut so cold and clear.
Apollo, oh take pity on my love;
55 I pine, I faint, I die with love of thee!
Thou makest e'en the humblest flower glad
42 EMMA LAZARUS
With thy great light, then change me, O my king.
Into the meanest one of these, or love me too!
Thus Clyde to Apollo, and at last
His heart she touches, for he now is seized 60
With tender pity for the pining nymph,
Transforming her in answer to her prayer.
A verdant tissue clothes her listless limbs,
And weaves itself about her graceful frame,
And spreadeth into leaves upon her breast, 65
And bursteth into little swelling buds,
Encasing all her pliant form. Her face
Becomes a flower golden as the sun,
Which moves upon its stalk and ever turns,
And follows even yet Apollo's course, 70
Up in the trackless heaven s azure waste.
May ist, 1866.
LONG ISLAND SOUND.*
I see it as it looked one afternoon
In August,—by a fresh soft breeze o'erblown.
The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon,
A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon.
The shining waters with pale currents strewn, 5
The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove,
The semi-circle of its dark, green grove.
The luminous grasses, and the merry sun
In the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide,
Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirp 10
Of crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide,
Light summer clouds fantastical as sleep
Changing unnoted while I gazed thereon.
All these fair sounds and sights I made my own.
1
 In her manuscript book of poems, Lazarus dates this sonnet 1869.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 43
FromAdmetus and Other Poems (1871)
Epochs.
"The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts, but in the
silent thought by the wayside as we walk."—Emerson.
1
I.Youth.
Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,
Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills,
Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain,
That each dark copse and hollow overfills;
5 The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills,
Weeds delicate-flowered, white and pink and gold,
A murmur and a singing manifold.
The gray, austere old earth renews her youth
With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze.
10 How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth,
While all is fresh as in the early days!
What simple things be these the soul to raise
To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat,
With nameless pleasure finding life so sweet.
15 On such a golden morning forth there floats,
Between the soft earth and the softer sky,
In the warm air adust with glistening motes,
The mystic-winged and flickering butterfly,
A human soul, that hovers giddily
20 Among the gardens of earth s paradise,
Nor dreams of fairer fields or loftier skies.
1
 See "Spiritual Laws," Essays: First Series (1841).
44 EMMA LAZARUS
II. Regret.
Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge,
Reddening the road and deepening the green
On wide, blurred lawn, and in close-tangled sedge;
Veiling in gray the landscape stretched between
These low broad meadows and the pale hills seen 5
But dimly on the far horizon s edge.
In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies,
Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun
Might any moment break, no sorrow lies,
No note of grief in swollen brooks that run, 10
No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone
Of all the prospect unto dreamy eyes.
Only a tender, unnamed half-regret
For the lost beauty of the gracious morn;
A yearning aspiration, fainter yet, 15
For brighter suns in joyous days unborn,
Now while brief showers ruffle grass and corn,
And all the earth lies shadowed, grave, and wet;
Space for the happy soul to pause again
From pure content of all unbroken bliss, 20
To dream the future void of grief and pain,
And muse upon the past, in reveries
More sweet for knowledge that the present is
Not all complete, with mist and clouds and rain.
III. Longing.
Look westward o'er the steaming rain-washed slopes,
Now satisfied with sunshine, and behold
Those lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes,
Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold,
In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled, 5
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 45
Floating like dreams, and melting silently,
In the blue upper regions of pure sky.
The eye is filled with beauty, and the heart
Rejoiced with sense of life and peace renewed;
10 And yet at such an hour as this, upstart
Vague myriad longings, restless, unsubdued,
And causeless tears from melancholy mood,
Strange discontent with earth s and nature s best,
Desires and yearnings that may find no rest.
IV. Storm.
Serene was morning with clear, winnowed air,
But threatening soon the low, blue mass of cloud
Rose in the west, with mutterings faint and rare
At first, but waxing frequent and more loud.
5 Thick sultry mists the distant hill-tops shroud;
The sunshine dies; athwart black skies of lead
Flash noiselessly thin threads of lightning red.
Breathless the earth seems waiting some wild blow,
Dreaded, but far too close to ward or shun.
10 Scared birds aloft fly aimless, and below
Naught stirs in fields whence light and life are gone,
Save floating leaves, with wisps of straw and down,
Upon the heavy air; 'neath blue-black skies,
Livid and yellow the green landscape lies.
15 And all the while the dreadful thunder breaks,
Within the hollow circle of the hills,
With gathering might, that angry echoes wakes,
And earth and heaven with unused clamor fills.
O'erhead still flame those strange electric thrills.
20 A moment more,—behold! yon bolt struck home,
And over ruined fields the storm hath come!
46 EMMA LAZARUS
V. Surprise.
When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes
On her changed world of ruin, waste and wrack,
Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise
Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back,
With wild self-pitying grief of one betrayed, 5
Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead!
Are these the heavens that she deemed were kind?
Is this the world that yesterday was fair?
What painted images of folk half-blind
Be these who pass her by, as vague as air? 10
What go they seeking? there is naught to find.
Let them come nigh and hearken her despair.
A mocking lie is all she once believed,
And where her heart throbbed, is a cold dead stone.
This is a doom she never preconceived, 15
Yet now she cannot fancy it undone.
Part of herself, part of the whole hard scheme,
All else is but the shadow of a dream.
VI. Grief.
There is a hungry longing in the soul,
A craving sense of emptiness and pain,
She may not satisfy nor yet control,
For all the teeming world looks void and vain.
No compensation in eternal spheres, 5
She knows the loneliness of all her years.
There is no comfort looking forth nor back,
The present gives the lie to all her past.
Will cruel time restore what she doth lack?
Why was no shadow of this doom forecast? 10
Ah! she hath played with many a keen-edged thing;
Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 47
In the unnatural glory of the hour,
Exalted over time, and death, and fate,
15 No earthly task appears beyond her power,
No possible endurance seemeth great.
She knows her misery and her majesty,
And recks not if she be to live or die.
VII. Acceptance.
Yea, she hath looked Truth grimly face to face,
And drained unto the lees the proffered cup.
This silence is not patience, nor the grace
Of resignation, meekly offered up,
5 But mere acceptance fraught with keenest pain,
Seeing that all her struggles must be vain.
Her future dear and terrible outlies,—
This burden to be borne through all her days,
This crown of thorns pressed down above her eyes,
10 This weight of trouble she may never raise.
No reconcilement doth she ask nor wait;
Knowing such things are, she endures her fate.
No brave endeavor of the broken will
To cling to such poor strays as will abide
15 (Although the waves be wild and angry still)
After the lapsing of the swollen tide.
No fear of further loss, no hope of gain,
Naught but the apathy of weary pain.
XVI. Peace.
The calm outgoing of a long, rich day,
Checkered with storm and sunshine, gloom and light
Now passing in pure, cloudless skies away,
Withdrawing into silence of blank night.
5 Thick shadows settle on the landscape bright,
48 EMMA LAZARUS
Like the weird cloud of death that falls apace
On the still features of the passive face.
Soothing and gentle as a mother's kiss,
The touch that stopped the beating of the heart.
A look so blissfully serene as this, 10
Not all the joy of living could impart.
Patient to bide, yet willing to depart,
With dauntless faith and courage therewithal,
The Master found her ready at his call.
On such a golden evening forth there floats, 15
Between the grave earth and the glowing sky
In the clear air, unvexed with hazy motes,
The mystic-winged and flickering butterfly,
A human soul, that drifts at liberty,
Ah! who can tell to what strange paradise, H20
To what undreamed-of fields and lofty skies!
February, 1871.
In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport.
1
Here, where the noises of the busy town,
The ocean s plunge and roar can enter not,
We stand and gaze around with tearful awe,
And muse upon the consecrated spot.
No signs of life are here: the very prayers 5
Inscribed around are in a language dead;
2
The light of the "perpetual lamp"
3
 is spent
1
 Touro Synagogue. In 1759 Congregation Yeshuat Israel (a Sephardic congregation
founded in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1658) erected this synagogue, the oldest Jewish
place of worship in the United States. It is also the subject of a poem by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport," The Courtship of Miles
Standish and Other Poems (1858).
2
 Hebrew.
3 Also known as the ner tamid, the perpetual lamp is kept continually burning in the
synagogue, a reminder of the menorah that once burned in the Temple.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 49
That an undying radiance was to shed.
What prayers were in this temple offered up,
10 Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth,
By these lone exiles of a thousand years,
From the fair sunrise land that gave them birth!
Now as we gaze, in this new world of light,
Upon this relic of the days of old,
15 The present vanishes, and tropic bloom
And Eastern towns and temples we behold.
Again we see the patriarch with his flocks,
The purple seas, the hot blue sky overhead,
The slaves of Egypt,—omens, mysteries,—
20 Dark fleeing hosts by flaming angels led.
1
A wondrous light upon a sky-kissed mount,
A man who reads Jehovah's written law,
'Midst blinding glory and effulgence rare,
Unto a people prone with reverent awe.
25 The pride of luxury's barbaric pomp,
In the rich court of royal Solomon—
Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains,—
The exiles by the streams of Babylon.
2
Our softened voices send us back again
30 But mournful echoes through the empty hall;
Our footsteps have a strange unnatural sound,
And with unwonted gentleness they fall.
The weary ones, the sad, the suffering,
1
 This stanza recalls several images from Genesis and Exodus: the patriarchs (Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob), the desert settings, slavery in Egypt, the ten plagues, prophetic
dreams, and the presence of God as a pillar of fire leading the children of Israel.
2
 See Psalm 137. Following the Babylonian army's conquest of Judah, several thousand
Israelites were forcibly resettled in Babylon from c. 585 to c. 538 BCE.
50 EMMA LAZARUS
All found their comfort in the holy place,
And children's gladness and men's gratitude 35
Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise.
The funeral and the marriage, now, alas!
We know not which is sadder to recall;
For youth and happiness have followed age,
And green grass lieth gently over all. 40
Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet,
With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod.
Take off your shoes as by the burning bush,
1
Before the mystery of death and God.
July, 1867.
Heroes.
In rich Virginian woods,
The scarlet creeper reddens over graves,
Among the solemn trees enlooped with vines;
Heroic spirits haunt the solitudes,—
The noble souls of half a million braves, 5
Amid the murmurous pines.
2
Ah! who is left behind,
Earnest and eloquent, sincere and strong,
To consecrate their memories with words
Not all unmeet? with fitting dirge and song 10
To chant a requiem purer than the wind,
And sweeter than the birds?
Here, though all seems at peace,
The placid, measureless sky serenely fair,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 51
1
 See Exodus 3.5.
2
 Approximately 620,000 soldiers died in the Civil War.
15 The laughter of the breeze among the leaves,
The bars of sunlight slanting through the trees,
The reckless wild-flowers blooming everywhere,
The grasses' delicate sheaves,—
Nathless each breeze that blows,
20 Each tree that trembles to its leafy head
With nervous life, revives within our mind,
Tender as flowers of May, the thoughts of those
Who lie beneath the living beauty, dead,—
Beneath the sunshine, blind.
25 For brave dead soldiers, these:
Blessings and tears of aching thankfulness,
Soft flowers for the graves in wreaths enwove,
The odorous lilac of dear memories,
The heroic blossoms of the wilderness,
30 And the rich rose of love.
But who has sung their praise,
Not less illustrious, who are living yet?
Armies of heroes, satisfied to pass
Calmly, serenely from the whole world s gaze,
35 And cheerfully accept, without regret,
Their old life as it was,
With all its petty pain,
Its irritating littleness and care;
They who have scaled the mountain, with content
40 Sublime, descend to live upon the plain;
Steadfast as though they breathed the mountain-air
Still, whereso'er they went.
They who were brave to act,
And rich enough their action to forget;
45 Who, having filled their day with chivalry,
Withdraw and keep their simpleness intact,
52 EMMA LAZARUS
And all unconscious add more lustre yet
T Tnfn t"V»^ir \7tf~tr\r\7
Unto their victory
On the broad Western plains
Their patriarchal life they live anew; 50
Hunters as mighty as the men of old,
Or harvesting the plenteous, yellow grains,
Gathering ripe vintage of dusk bunches blue,
Or working mines of gold;
Or toiling in the town, 55
Armed against hindrance, weariness, defeat,
With dauntless purpose not to swerve or yield,
And calm, defiant strength, they struggle on,
As sturdy and as valiant in the street,
As in the camp and
And those condemned to live,
Maimed, helpless, lingering still through suffering years,
May they not envy now the restful sleep
Of the dear fellow-martyrs they survive?
Not o'er the dead, but over these, your tears, 65
0 brothers, ye may weep!
New England fields I see,
The lovely, cultured landscape, waving grain,
Wide, haughty rivers, and pale, English skies.
And lo! a farmer ploughing busily, 70
Who lifts a swart face, looks upon the plain,—
1 see, in his frank eyes,
The hero's soul appear.
Thus in the common fields and streets they stand;
The light that on the past and distant gleams, 75
They cast upon the present and the near,
With antique virtues from some mystic land,
Of knightly deeds and dreams.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 53
field 60
PHANTASIES
(After Robert Schumann).
1
I. Evening.
Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of cloud
From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west—
No film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud.
The earth lies grave, by quiet airs caressed,
5 And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream,
Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed,
And traileth with the splendors of a dream
Athwart the dusky land. Uplift thine eyes!
Unbroken by a vapor or a gleam,
10 The vast clear reach of mild, wan twilight skies.
But look again, and lo, the evening star!
Against the pale tints black the slim elms rise,
The earth exhales sweet odors nigh and far,
And from the heavens fine influences fall.
15 Familiar things stand not for what they are:
What they suggest, foreshadow or recall
The spirit is alert to apprehend,
Imparting somewhat of herself to all.
54 EMMA LAZARUS
1
 Robert Schumann (i810-56), German Romantic composer who had a strong inter-
est in the relationship between music and literature. Characteristically self-expressive,
introspective, and lyrical, his work often captures moods or specific moments of
thought and feeling. Lazarus's poem cycle draws its inspiration from Schumann's
eight-part piano piece Phantasiestucke op. 12 (1837); the eight parts are:"Des Abends"
(evening),"Aufschwung" (upswing or upturn),"Warum?" (why?),"Grillen" (crick-
ets), "In der Nacht" (in the night), "Fabel" (fable), "Traumes Wirren" (confused
dreams), and"Ende vom Lied" (end of the song).
Labor and thought and care are at an end:
The soul is filled with gracious reveries, 20
And with her mood soft sounds and colors blend;
For simplest sounds ring forth like melodies
In this weird-lighted air—the monotone
Of some far bell, the distant farmyard cries,
A barking dog, the thin, persistent drone 25
Of crickets, and the lessening call of birds.
The apparition of yon star alone
Breaks on the sense like music. Beyond words
The peace that floods the soul, for night is here,
And Beauty still is guide and harbinger. 30
II. Aspiration.
Dark lies the earth, and bright with worlds the sky:
That soft, large, lustrous star, that first outshone,
Still holds us spelled with potent sorcery.
Dilating, shrinking, lightening, it hath won
Our spirit with its strange strong influence, 5
And sways it as the tides beneath the moon.
What impulse this, o'ermastering heart and sense?
Exalted, thrilled, the freed soul fain would soar
Unto that point of shining prominence,
Craving new fields and some unheard-of shore, 10
Yea, all the heavens, for her activity,
To mount with daring flight, to hover o'er
Low hills of earth, flat meadows, level sea,
And earthly joy and trouble. In this hour
Of waning light and sound, of mystery, 15
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 55
Of shadowed love and beauty-veiled power,
She feels her wings: she yearns to grasp her own,
Knowing the utmost good to be her dower.
A dream! a dream! for at a touch 'tis gone.
20 O mocking spirit! thy mere fools are we,
Unto the depths from heights celestial thrown.
From these blind gropings toward reality,
This thirst for truth, this most pathetic need
Of something to uplift, to justify,
25 To help and comfort while we faint and bleed,
May we not draw, wrung from the last despair,
Some argument of hope, some blessed creed,
That we can trust the faith which whispers prayer,
The vanishings, the ecstasy, the gleam,
30 The nameless aspiration and the dream?
III. Wherefore?
Deep languor overcometh mind and frame:
A listless, drowsy, utter weariness,
A trance wherein no thought finds speech or name,
The overstrained spirit doth possess.
5 She sinks with drooping wing—poor unfledged bird,
That fain had flown!—in fluttering breathlessness.
To what end those high hopes that wildly stirred
The beating heart with aspirations vain?
Why proffer prayers unanswered and unheard
10 To blank, deaf heavens that will not heed her pain?
Where lead these lofty, soaring tendencies,
That leap and fly and poise, to fall again,
56 EMMA LAZARUS
Yet seem to link her with the utmost skies?
What mean these clinging loves that bind to earth,
And claim her with beseeching, wistful eyes? 15
This little resting-place 'twixt death and birth,
Why is it fretted with the ceaseless flow
Of flood and ebb, with overgrowth and dearth,
And vext with dreams, and clouded with strange woe?
Ah! she is tired of thought, she yearns for peace, 20
Seeing all things one equal end must know.
Wherefore this tangle of perplexities,
The trouble or the joy? the weary maze
Of narrow fears and hopes that may not cease?
A chill falls on her from the skiey ways, 25
Black with the night-tide, where is none to hear
The ancient cry, the Wherefore of our days.
IV. Fancies.
The ceaseless whirr of crickets fills the ear
From underneath each hedge and bush and tree,
Deep in the dew-drenched grasses everywhere.
The simple sound dispels the fantasy
Of gloom and terror gathering round the mind. 5
It seems a pleasant thing to breathe, to be,
To hear the many-voiced, soft summer wind
Lisp through the dark thick leafage overhead—
To see the rosy half-moon soar behind
The black slim-branching elms. Sad thoughts have fled, 10
Trouble and doubt, and now strange reveries
And odd caprices fill us in their stead.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 57
From yonder broken disk the redness dies,
Like gold fruit through the leaves the half-sphere gleams,
15 Then over the hoar tree-tops climbs the skies,
Blanched ever more and more, until it beams
Whiter than crystal. Like a scroll unfurled,
And shadowy as a landscape seen in dreams,
Reveals itself the sleeping, quiet world,
20 Painted in tender grays and whites subdued—
The speckled stream with flakes of light impearled,
The wide, soft meadow and the massive wood.
Naught is too wild for our credulity
In this weird hour: our finest dreams hold good.
25 Quaint elves and frolic flower-sprites we see,
And fairies weaving rings of gossamer,
And angels floating through the filmy air.
V. In The Night.
Let us go in: the air is dank and chill
With dewy midnight, and the moon rides high
O'er ghostly fields, pale stream and spectral hill.
This hour the dawn seems farthest from the sky
5 So weary long the space that lies between
That sacred joy and this dark mystery
Of earth and heaven: no glimmering is seen,
In the star-sprinkled east, of coming day,
Nor, westward, of the splendor that hath been.
10 Strange fears beset us, nameless terrors sway
The brooding soul, that hungers for her rest,
Outworn with changing moods, vain hopes' delay,
58 EMMA LAZARUS
With conscious thought o'erburdened and oppressed.
The mystery and the shadow wax too deep:
She longs to merge both sense and thought in sleep. 15
VI. Faerie.
From the oped lattice glance once more abroad
While the ethereal moontide bathes with light
Hill, stream and garden and white-winding road.
All gracious myths born of the shadowy night
Recur, and hover in fantastic guise, 5
Airy and vague, before the drowsy sight.
On yonder soft gray hill Endymion lies
In rosy slumber, and the moonlit air
Breathes kisses on his cheeks and lips and eyes.
'Twixt bush and bush gleam flower-white limbs, left bare, 10
Of huntress-nymphs, and flying raiment thin,
Vanishing faces, and bright floating hair.
The quaint midsummer fairies and their kin,
Gnomes, elves and trolls, on blossom, branch and grass
Gambol and dance, and winding out and in 15
Leave circles of spun dew where'er they pass.
Through the blue ether the freed Ariel flies;
Enchantment holds the air; a swarming mass
Of myriad dusky, gold-winged dreams arise,
Throng toward the gates of sense, and so possess 20
The soul, and lull it to forgetfulness.
VII. Confused Dreams.
O strange, dim other-world revealed to us,
Beginning there where ends reality,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 59
Lying 'twixt life and death, and populous
With souls from either sphere! now enter we
5 Thy twisted paths. Barred is the silver gate,
But the wild-carven doors of ivory
Spring noiselessly apart: between them straight
Flies forth a cloud of nameless shadowy things,
With harpies, imps and monsters, small and great,
10 Blurring the thick air with their darkening wings.
All humors of the blood and brain take shape,
And fright us with our own imaginings.
A trouble weighs upon us: no escape
From this unnatural region can there be.
15 Fixed eyes stare on us, wide mouths grin and gape,
Familiar faces out of reach we see.
Fain would we scream, to shatter with a cry
The tangled woof of hideous fantasy,
When, lo! the air grows clear, a soft fair sky
20 Shines overhead; sharp pain dissolves in peace;
Beneath the silver archway quietly
We float away: all troublous visions cease.
By a strange sense of joy we are possessed,
Body and spirit soothed in perfect rest.
VIII.The End of the Song.
What dainty note of long-drawn melody
Athwart our dreamless sleep rings sweet and clear,
Till all the fumes of slumber are brushed by,
60 EMMA LAZARUS
And with awakened consciousness we hear
The pipe of birds? Look forth! The sane, white day 5
Blesses the hilltops, and the sun is near.
All misty phantoms slowly roll away
With the night s vapors toward the western sky.
The Real enchants us, the fresh breath of hay
Blows toward us; soft the meadow-grasses lie, 10
Bearded with dew; the air is a caress;
The sudden sun o'ertops the boundary
Of eastern hills, the morning joyousness
Thrills tingling through the frame; life's pulse beats strong;
Night s fancies melt like dew. So ends the song! 15
MOODS.
When clear May sunshine falls on white and green,
And earth takes on the garland of a bride—
When midst the lilac-leaves thick buds are seen,
And glad bird-voices call on every side—
When in our veins the spirit of spring-tide 5
Leaps up to see and hear joy everywhere—
A still small voice comes sighing through the air,
"Ah, the poor dead who own in all this feast no share!"
When at the welcome end of the long day
The spirit wearies of her weight of care, 10
Vain seems the pleasant Past, and far away,
And coming griefs seem more than she can bear.
Thick darkness settles in the gloomy air,
Black mysteries and shadows haunt the heart,
While the voice whispers as the quick tears start, 15
"Ah, happy dead who in this trouble own no part!"
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 6l
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE FRENCH OF
FRANCOIS COPPEE.*
I.—October Morning.
O exquisite auroral hour,
Flushed by the sudden sun!
Through the autumnal haze a shower
Of leaves drops one by one.
5 Slowly, they come: the eye perceives,
With lazy, following view,
The oak tree's copper-colored leaves,
The maple s blood-red hue.
The last, the rustiest of all,
10 From the despoiled branches fall;
Yet winter is not with us now.
A blond light bathes the landscape sere,
And through the rosy atmosphere
There seems to fall a golden snow.
II.—Ignis-Fatuus.
Through stormy night, beneath a dolorous sky,
The peasant, from sad vigils wending home,
Near the wet road oft sees the tricksy gnome,
The ignis-fatuus, steadfast as an eye.
5 If he advance, his pride o'ermastering fear,
The light retreats, and seems twixt leaf and leaf,
A beacon-flame afar upon a reef,
Twisted and tortured by the sea-winds drear.
But if the coward flee and look askance,
10 Close, close beside the infernal light doth dance:
1
 "Matin d'Octobre" and "Le Feu Follet," Poesies Completes de Francois Coppee, 3 vols.
(Paris: Librairie Alphonse Lemerre, [n.d.]) 2:34-35,
1:
47-
62 EMMA LAZARUS
Its piercing evil eye is not withdrawn.
O old desire! why still pursu st thou me,
Since thou didst fly when I gave chase to thee?
Oh, when shalt thou be quenched? when conies the dawn?
ARABESQUE.
1
On a background of pale gold
I would trace with quaint design,
Pencilled fine,
Brilliant-colored, Moorish scenes,
Mosques and crescents, pages, queens, 5
Line on line,
That the prose-world of to-day
Might the gorgeous Past s array
Once behold.
On the magic painted shield 10
Rich Granada's Vega
2
 green
Should be seen;
Crystal fountains, coolness flinging,
Hanging gardens' skyward springing
Emerald sheen; 15
Ruddy when the daylight falls,
Crowned Alhambra's beetling walls
Stand revealed;
Balconies that overbrow
Field and city, vale and stream. 20
In a dream
1
 This meditation on the history and art of Granada under the Moors alludes to 1492,
a year full of significance for Lazarus (see "1492," "By the Waters of Babylon").
Boabdil, or Muhammad XI, the last sultan of Granada, officially surrendered power
to the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella on 2 January 1492. As he left,
Boabdil gazed upon the Alhambra, the site of the palace and its gardens, one last time
and wept. The summit from which he took this final look is known as El Suspiro del
Mow or El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro ("The Last Sigh of the Moor").
2
 Fertile valley (Spanish).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 63
Lulled the drowsy landscape basks;
Weary toilers cease their tasks.
Mark the gleam
25 Silvery of each white-swathed peak!
Mountain-airs caress the cheek,
Fresh from snow.
Here in Lindaraxa s bower
1
The immortal roses bloom;
30 In the room
Lion-guarded, marble-paven,
Still the fountain leaps to heaven.
But the doom
Of the banned and stricken race
35 Overshadows every place,
Every hour.
Where fair Lindaraxa dwelt
Flits the bat on velvet wings;
Mute the strings
40 Of the broken mandoline;
The Pavilion of the Queen
Widely flings
Vacant windows to the night;
Moonbeams kiss the floor with light
45 Where she knelt.
Through these halls that people stepped
Who through darkling centuries
Held the keys
Of all wisdom, truth, and art,
1
 Lindaraxa's Garden (Eljardin de Lindaja) is a part of the Alhambra complex. According
to Washington Irving, Lindaraxa "was a Moorish beauty who flourished in the court
of Muhamed the Left-Handed." She had an "apartment in the Alhambra, and was
given by the king in marriage to Nasar, a young Cetimerien prince....Their espousals
were doubtless celebrated in the royal palace, and their honeymoon may have passed
among these very bowers" (The Alhambra, ed. William T. Lenehan and Andrew B.
Myers [Boston:Twayne, 1983], 57).
64 EMMA LAZARUS
In a Paradise apart, 50
Lapped in ease,
Sagely pondering deathless themes,
While, befooled with monkish dreams,
Europe slept.
Where shall they be found to-day? 55
Yonder hill that frets the sky
"The Last Sigh
Of the Moor" is named still.
There the ill-starred Boabdil
Bade good-by 60
To Granada and to Spain,
Where the Crescent ne'er again
Holdeth sway.
Vanished like the wind that blows,
Whither shall we seek their trace 65
On earth s face?
The gigantic wheel of fate,
Crushing all things soon or late,
Now a race,
Now a single life o'er runs, 70
Now a universe of suns,
Now a rose.
THE CRANES OF IsYcus.
1
There was a man who watched the river flow
Past the huge town, one gray November day.
Round him in narrow high-piled streets at play
1
 Ibycus was a Greek lyric poet of the sixth-century BCE. According to legend, when
robbers fatally attacked the poet outside Corinth, he cried to a swarm of cranes flying
above to avenge his murder. Later one of the murderers saw the birds and said, "Behold
the cranes of Ibycus." The comment revealed the identity of the murders, becoming an
unintentional confession that led to their arrest. Lazarus s familiarity with this legend may
have come from reading Friedrich Schiller's ballad "Die Kraniche des Ibycus" (1797). In
her manuscript book of poems, Lazarus dates this sonnet November n, 1877.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 65
The boys made merry as they saw him go,
5 Murmuring half-loud, with eyes upon the stream,
The immortal screed he held within his hand.
For he was walking in an April land
With Faust and Helen. Shadowy as a dream
Was the prose-world, the river and the town.
10 Wild joy possessed him; through enchanted skies
He saw the cranes of Ibycus swoop down.
He closed the page, he lifted up his eyes,
Lo—a black line of birds in wavering thread
Bore him the greetings of the deathless dead!
OFF ROUGH POINT.
l
We sat at twilight nigh the sea,
The fog hung gray and weird.
Through the thick film uncannily
The broken moon appeared.
5 We heard the billows crack and plunge,
We saw nor waves nor ships.
Earth sucked the vapors like a sponge,
The salt spray wet our lips.
Closer the woof of white mist drew,
10 Before, behind, beside.
How could that phantom moon break through,
Above that shrouded tide?
The roaring waters filled the ear,
A white blank foiled the sight.
15 Close-gathering shadows near, more near,
Brought the blind, awful night.
1
 Rough Point is a cluster of rocks along Newport, Rhode Island's Atlantic coastline.
66 EMMA LAZARUS
O friends who passed unseen, unknown!
O dashing, troubled sea!
Still stand we on a rock alone,
Walled round by mystery. 20
LEDA & THE SWAN.
Faust. Part II. Act II. Scene 2.
1
Oh charming prospect! In clear waters glass'd,
A thick green copse, fair women half undrest,
Rare sisterhood! Each lovelier than the last.
Conspicuous in beauty o'er the rest,
One form heroic, yea, celestial seed, 5
Bathes in the lucid flood, her royal frame,
Within the clinging crystal nigh the reed,
Cools its life nourishing, pure-burning flame.
But hark! swift wings are flapping mid the grass,
What stir, what flashing vexes the smooth glass? 10
The maidens flee affrighted; she, the Queen,
Alone remains with calm, majestic mien.
Thrilled with proud, feminine delights she sees
The Prince of Swans come fawning to her knees,
Importunately tame. He nestles there, 15
And all at once a thick mist fills the air,
Concealing with its woven veil of white,
The loveliest of pictures from my sight.
Jany. 1878
THE SOUTH.
Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies
Behold the Spirit of the musky South,
A Creole with still-burning, languid eyes,
1
 Translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part 2 (1832), 2.2.85-102.
Homunculus speaks these lines, which are Faust's dream about Zeus who takes the
form of a swan to seduce Leda, the beautiful Queen of Sparta.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 67
Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth:
5 Swathed in spun gauze is she,
From fibres of her own anana tree.
1
Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease,
By rich night-breezes, dewy cool, caressed:
'Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees,
10 Like to the golden oriole s hanging nest,
Her airy hammock swings,
And through the dark her mocking-bird yet sings.
How beautiful she is! A tulip-wreath
Twines round her shadowy, free-floating hair:
15 Young, weary, passionate, and sad as death,
Dark visions haunt for her the vacant air,
While noiselessly she lies
With lithe, lax, folded hands and heavy eyes.
Full well knows she how wide and fair extend
20 Her groves bright flowered, her tangled everglades,
Majestic streams that indolently wend
Through lush savanna or dense forest shades,
Where the brown buzzard flies
To broad bayous 'neath hazy-golden skies.
25 Hers is the savage splendor of the swamp,
With pomp of scarlet and of purple bloom,
Where blow warm, furtive breezes faint and damp,
Strange insects whir, and stalking bitterns boom—
Where from stale waters dead
30 Oft looms the great-jawed alligator's head.
Her wealth, her beauty, and the blight on these,—
Of all she is aware: luxuriant woods,
Fresh, living, sunlit, in her dream she sees;
And ever midst those verdant solitudes
1
 Pineapple.
68 EMMA LAZARUS
The soldier's wooden cross, 35
O'ergrown by creeping tendrils and rank moss.
Was hers a dream of empire? was it sin?
And is it well that all was borne in vain?
She knows no more than one who slow doth win,
After fierce fever, conscious life again, 40
Too tired, too weak, too sad,
By the new light to be or stirred or glad.
From rich sea-islands fringing her green shore,
From broad plantations where swart freemen bend
Bronzed backs in willing labor, from her store 45
Of golden fruit, from stream, from town, ascend
Life-currents of pure health:
Her aims shall be subserved with boundless wealth.
Yet now how listless and how still she lies,
Like some half-savage, dusky Indian queen, 50
Rocked in her hammock 'neath her native skies,
With the pathetic, passive, broken mien
Of one who, sorely proved,
Great-souled, hath suffered much and much hath loved!
But look! along the wide -branched, dewy glade 55
Glimmers the dawn: the light palmetto trees
And cypresses reissue from the shade,
And she hath wakened. Through clear air she sees
The pledge, the brightening ray,
And leaps from dreams to hail the coming day. 60
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 69
SYMPHONIC STUDIES.
(After Robert Schumann.)
l
Prelude.
Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea:
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky.
5 Shall we not call him Prospero who held
In his enchanted hands the fateful key
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery,
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled,
With him to wander by a sun-bright shore,
10 To hear fine, fairy voices, and to fly
With disembodied Ariel once more
Above earth's wrack and ruin? Far and nigh
The laughter of the thunder echoed loud,
And harmless lightnings leapt from cloud to cloud.
I.
Floating upon a swelling wave of sound,
We seemed to overlook an endless sea:
Poised 'twixt clear heavens and glittering surf were we.
We drank the air in flight: we knew no bound
5 To the audacious ventures of desire.
Nigh us the sun was dropping, drowned in gold;
Deep, deep below the burning billows rolled;
And all the sea sang like a smitten lyre.
Oh, the wild voices of those chanting waves!
10 The human faces glimpsed beneath the tide!
Familiar eyes gazed from profound sea-caves,
And we, exalted, were as we had died.
1
 See note i, p. 54. This cycle of poems draws its inspiration from Schumann's
Symphonische Ettiden, op. 13 (1834-37).
7O EMMA LAZARUS
We knew the sea was Life, the harmonious cry
The blended discords of humanity.
II.
Look deeper yet: mark 'midst the wave-blurred mass.
In lines distinct, in colors clear defined,
The typic groups and figures of mankind.
Behold within the cool and liquid glass
Bright child-folk sporting with smooth yellow shells, 5
Astride of dolphins, leaping up to kiss
Fair mother-faces. From the vast abyss
How joyously their thought-free laughter wells!
Some slumber in grim caverns unafraid,
Lulled by the overwhelming water s sound, 10
And some make mouths at dragons, undismayed.
Oh dauntless innocence! The gulfs profound
Re-echo strangely with their ringing glee,
And with wise mermaids' plaintive melody.
III.
What do the sea-nymphs in that coral cave?
With wondering eyes their supple forms they bend
O'er something rarely beautiful.They lend
Their lithe white arms, and through the golden wave
They lift it tenderly. Oh blinding sight! 5
A naked, radiant goddess, tranced in sleep,
Full-limbed, voluptuous, 'neath the mantling sweep
Of auburn locks that kiss her ankles white!
Upward they bear her, chanting low and sweet:
The clinging waters part before their way, 10
Jewels of flame are dancing 'neath their feet.
Up in the sunshine, on soft foam, they lay
Their precious burden, and return forlorn.
Oh bliss! oh anguish! Mortals, Love is born!
1
1
 In the Greek myth about Aphrodite's birth, she emerges from the ocean's foam.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS JI
IV.
Hark! from unfathomable deeps a dirge
Swells sobbing through the melancholy air:
Where Love has entered, Death is also there.
The wail outrings the chafed, tumultuous surge:
5 Ocean and earth, the illimitable skies,
Prolong one note, a mourning for the dead,
The cry of souls not to be comforted.
What piercing music! Funeral visions rise,
And send the hot tears raining down our cheek.
10 We see the silent grave upon the hill
With its lone lilac-bush. O heart, be still!
She will not rise, she will not stir nor speak.
Surely, the unreturning dead are blest.
Ring on, sweet dirge, and knell us to our rest!
V.
Upon the silver beach the undines dance
With interlinking arms and flying hair;
Like polished marble gleam their limbs left bare;
Upon their virgin rites pale moonbeams glance.
5 Softer the music! for their foam-bright feet
Print not the moist floor where they trip their round:
Affrighted they will scatter at a sound,
Leap in their cool sea-chambers, nimbly fleet,
And we shall doubt that we have ever seen,
10 While our sane eyes behold stray wreaths of mist,
Shot with faint colors by the moon-rays kissed,
Floating snow-soft, snow-white, where these had been.
Already, look! the wave-washed sands are bare,
And mocking laughter ripples through the air.
VI.
Divided 'twixt the dream-world and the real,
We heard the waxing passion of the song
72 EMMA LAZARUS
Soar as to scale the heavens on pinions strong.
Amidst the long-reverberant thunder-peal,
Against the rain-blurred square of light, the head 5
Of the pale poet at the lyric keys
Stood boldly cut, absorbed in reveries,
While over it keen-bladed lightnings played.
"Rage on, wild storm!" the music seemed to sing:
"Not all the thunders of thy wrath can move 10
The soul that's dedicate to worshipping
Eternal Beauty, everlasting Love."
No more! the song was ended, and behold,
A rainbow trembling on a sky of gold!
Epilogue.
Forth in the sunlit, rain-bathed air we stepped,
Sweet with the dripping grass and flowering vine,
And saw through irised clouds the pale sun shine.
Back o'er the hills the rain-mist slowly crept
Like a transparent curtain's silvery sheen; 5
And fronting us the painted bow was arched,
Whereunder the majestic cloud-shapes marched:
In the wet, yellow light the dazzling green
Of lawn and bush and tree seemed stained with blue.
Our hearts o'erflowed with peace. With smiles we spake 10
Of partings in the past, of courage new,
Of high achievement, of the dreams that make
A wonder and a glory of our days,
And all life's music but a hymn of praise.
THE CREATION OF MAN .
Miwok Fable.
1
In the valley of Awani,
Walled with ashen rocks & tawny,
1
 This poem is based on a Miwok creation story recorded in the 18708. See Stephen
Powers, Tribes of California (1877; reprint, Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California
P, 1976), 358-60.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 73
Granite giants climbing far,
Dare to kiss the morning star.
5 From the clouds,Yosemite,
Down the peak falls dizzily,
Flashing foam through mist & thunder,
To the grassy vale thereunder,
Where the beryl-bright Merced,
10 Laughs from out its flowing bed.
Man had not been fashioned yet,
But the animals had met,
In deliberate council seated,
Neath the canon-cliff, whose sheeted
15 Plunging cataract filled in
All their pauses with its din.
At their head the Lion sat,
Chief of all & autocrat.
O'er his mighty shoulders spread
20 Tangled locks of brownish red.
Lordlike he upheld his crest,
Like a shield of bronze his breast.
Death lurked in those massive paws.
If his ponderous, bearded jaws
25 Were more crushing than convincing,
Who can blame his court for wincing,
Neath his flaming yellow eyes,
(Knowing him more strong than wise,)
Neath the thunder of his roar?
30 Might is right the broad world o'er,
(Yet within the ring I see
One shall prove more strong than he.)
Next in rank the grizzly Bear,
Fierce
 I
Osomaiti is there.
35 Stealthy footed, vicious-eyed,
Where the nimble squirrels hide
1
 From a corruption of this word comes the present name of the Valley of theYosemite.
(Lazarus's note.) See Powers, 361-62.
74 EMMA LAZARUS
He will lift his clumsy weight.
Or his lazy greed will sate
Where the tree has stored her spoil,
Culled with slow & patient toil. 40
He attacks not with a blow,
As a fair & open foe,
Like false boar with fiery breath,
Hugs his victim unto death.
(Yet within the ring I see 45
One shall prove more sly than he.)
By his side the brown bear stood,
Kindred yet of gentle blood.
Next the gray wolf, gaunt & lean,
Badger, coon & wolverine. 50
Mountain sheep that scales the rocks,
Antlered buck & bush-tailed fox.
Shag-haired buffalo uncouth,
Savage boar with lipless tooth.
Sunward-gazing golden bird, 55
Blinking owl & marten furred.
Beaver, toad &: eyeless mole,
Last & least from out her hole
Crept the mouse, o'erjoyed to be
In such noble company. 60
Who is that within the ring,
Shall present before the King?
In their midst demure he sits
Yet all others he outwits.
'Tis the wild coyote cunning, 65
Shambling, graceless-limbed yet running
O'er the sage-brush desert ground
Swifter than the fleet-foot hound.
What a starvling! worn & thin
Neath his scant-haired, crust-hard skin, 70
Barrel-hoops affirm his bones,
Not one charm the poor brute owns.
Sagging tail & downcast eye,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 75
Living type of misery.
75 Gifted with a croaking bark.
Yet upon his lean lips, mark!
Is not that a shrewd, wise smile,
Hovering o'er them all the while?
Forced to live upon his wits,
80 He has sharped them as befits
He whom all the beasts despise,
Learning to philosophize,
Plucketh least of grace at length,
From their foibles draws his strength.
85 First the Lion-King began
To expound his views of man.
This new animal must be
Like himself externally.
Talons strong & keen-fanged claws,
90 Flowing mane & iron jaws.
With a thunderous voice to make
All the lesser creatures quake.
Here the grizzly Bear answered
Duller scheme was never heard.
95 Such a roar the very prey
He pursued, would scare away.
Nay, let man be wondrous strong,
Glide with silence swift along,
Noiseless-pawed, with bated breath,
ioo Grip his game & hug to death.
With the bear the Stag concurred,
Such a roar was too absurd.
But upon man's helpless head,
Branching antlers must be spread.
105 Wherefore heed his throat that cries?
Spend all skill on ears & eyes.
Let the first be spun as fine
As the spider's woven line.
And to speak his heart's desire,
no Let the eyes be wrought of fire.
76 EMMA LAZARUS
Mountain sheep could never see
Of what use might antlers be,
Tangled in the thicket dense.
It would prove far greater sense,
If Mans horns, uprolled instead, 115
Stood like stones above his head.
Adding force & weight securer,
And to butt with, all the surer.
Scarcely the coyote wise
Held awake his drowsy eyes, 120
While such folly was declaimed.
Every noodle wished man framed
Like himself, as he confesses.
Were they then such great successes?
Why not take upon this plan, 125
Each his cub, & call it man?
He had no such predilection,
Knowing he was not perfection.
Man must have like him a nose,
Four swift legs & twenty toes. 130
One good point the bear possessed,
Feet that stood erect, & blest
With the absence of a tail,
Which he found of no avail,
Save to harbor fleas & flies. 135
Copy the stags ears & eyes.
The coyote had one wish,
To be naked like the fish.
Useless burden proved his hair,
Half the year—be man s skin bare. 140
Be his claws like Eagle s bold,
Sure to grasp & firm to hold.
But with their united strength,
Must not all confess at length,
No one save himself was fit 145
To supply the man with wit?
"How? no tail?" the Beaver cried,
SELECTE D POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 77
145
135
"Let man's tale be flat & wide.
What new limb could ere be planned,
150 Wherewith to haul mud & sand?"
Here the drowsy owl awoke,
Like an oracle he spoke:
"Sure, above all other things,
Man must have a pair of wings."
155 "Wings, forsooth!" the blind mole cries.
"He will bump against the skies.
Or if he be firm in sight,
Burn his eyes in sunny flight."
Rather would the mole advise,
160 Man have neither wings nor eyes,
So that he can burrow oft,
In the cool earth dark & soft,
Where alone are joy & rest.
Each one thought his scheme the best,
165 And a scene of wild confusion
Marked the meeting's dissolution.
Wrathful the coyote skipped
On the beaver s back, & nipped
From his cheek a bloody shred.
170 On the mad coyote's head,
Perched the owl, & straight began
Scalping like an Indian.
Lion roared & Eagle screamed,
Such a discord ne'er was dreamed.
175 All day long till twilight fell,
None the fierce dispute could quell.
Then a lump of earth each seized,
Moulding, shaping as he pleased.
But the gradual light diminished,
180 And before his task was finished
Each one slept till morn should break.
One alone remained awake.
The coyote, wise & sly,
Never closed his cunning eye,
78 EMMA LAZARUS
But upon his model still 185
Worked with patient strength & skill,
Went & spoiled, when all was done,
What his rivals had begun.
1
So! When these awoke, they found
Standing on the daylit ground, 190
Naked & erect & tall,
This new, tailless animal.
Lion winced with eyes of fire,
To perceive his heart s desire.
Like the eagle swift & bold, 195
Sure to grasp & firm to hold,
Blest with wit to overreach
Power & craft of all & each.
Thus according to his plan,
The coyote fashioned man. 200
Feby. 1879.
A LETTER, FROM JUDAH HALLEVI TO His FRIEND ISAAC.
FROM THE GERMAN OF DR. GEIGER.
2
But yesterday the earth drank like a child
With eager thirst the autumn rain.
Or like a wistful bride who waits the hour
Of love's mysterious bliss and pain.
And now the Spring is here with yearning eyes; 5
Midst shimmering golden flower-beds,
On meadows carpeted with varied hues,
In richest raiment clad, she treads.
She weaves a tapestry of bloom o'er all,
1
 Coyote "spoiled" his rivals' creations by urinating on them. See Powers, 360.
2
 Lazarus translated this poem from the German of Abraham Geiger who had trans-
lated it from Judah Halevi's Hebrew. For the Hebrew text of this poem with a facing
page English translation, see Selected Poems ofjehudah Halevi, trans. Nina Salaman, ed.
Heinrich Brody (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1924) 71-77. For Geiger s
version, see Divan des Castiliers Abu'l-Hassan Juda ha-Levi (Breslau, 1851), 46-47. For
more on Judah Halevi, see note i, p. 207.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 79
io And myriad eyed young plants upspring,
White, green, or red like lips that to the mouth
Of the beloved one sweetly cling.
Whence come these radiant tints, these blended beams?
Here's such a dazzle, such a blaze,
15 As though earth stole the splendor of the stars,
Fain to eclipse them with her rays.
Come! go we to the garden with our wine,
Which scatters sparks of hot desire,
Within our hand 'tis cold, but in our veins
20 It flashes clear, it glows like fire.
It bubbles sunnily in earthen jugs.
We catch it in the crystal glass,
Then wander through cool, shadowy lanes and breathe
The spicy freshness of the grass.
25 Whilst we with happy hearts our circuit keep,
The gladness of the earth is shown.
She smileth, though the trickling rain drops weep
Silently o'er her, one by one.
She loves to feel the tears upon her cheek,
30 Like a rich veil, with pearls inwove.
Joyous she listens when the swallows chirp,
And warbles to her mate, the dove.
Blithe as a maiden midst the young green leaves,
A wreath she'll wind, a fragrant treasure;
35 All living things in graceful motion leap,
As dancing to some merry measure.
The morning breezes rustle cordially,
Love's thirst is sated with the balm they send.
Sweet breathes the myrtle in the frolic wind,
40 As though remembering a distant friend.
The myrtle branch now proudly lifted high,
Now whispering to itself drops low again.
The topmost palm-leaves rapturously stir,
For all at once they hear the birds' soft strain.
45 So stirs, so yearns all nature, gaily decked,
To honor Isaac with her best array.
Hear'st thou the word? She cries—I beam with joy,
Because with Isaac I am wed to-day.
80 EMMA LAZARUS
CHOPIN.
1
I.
A dream of interlinking hands, of feet
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof,
Of the entangling waltz. Bright eyebeams meet,
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof,
Warm perfumes rise; the soft, unflickering glow 5
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, the dazzling snow
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms.
Hark to the music! How beneath the strain
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs 10
One fundamental chord of constant pain,
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs.
So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice,
The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice.
II.
Who shall proclaim the golden fable false
Of Orpheus'miracles? This subtle strain
Above our prose-world's sordid loss and gain
Lightly uplifts us. With the rhythmic waltz,
The lyric prelude, the nocturnal song 5
Of love and languor, varied visions rise,
That melt and blend to our enchanted eyes.
The Polish poet who sleeps silenced long,
The seraph-souled musician, breathes again
Etherial eloquence, immortal pain. 10
Revived the exalted face we know so well,
The illuminated eyes, the fragile frame,
Slowly consuming with its inward flame.
We stir not, speak not, lest we break the spell.
1
 Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849), Polish-born composer and pianist.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 8l
III.
A Voice was needed, sweet and true and fine,
As the sad spirit of the evening breeze,
Throbbing with human passion, yet divine
As the wild bird's untutored melodies.
5 A voice for him 'neath twilight heavens dim,
Who mourneth for his dead, while round him fall
The wan and noiseless leaves. A voice for him
Who sees the first green sprout, who hears the call
Of the first robin on the first Spring day.
10 A voice for all whom Fate hath set apart,
Who, still misprized, must perish by the way,
Longing with love, for that they lack the art
Of their own soul's expression. For all these
Sing the unspoken hope, the vague, sad reveries.
IV.
Then nature shaped a poet's heart—a lyre
From out whose chords the lightest breeze that blows
Drew trembling music, wakening sweet desire.
How shall she cherish him? Behold! she throws
5 This precious, fragile treasure in the whirl
Of seething passions; he is scourged and stung,
Must dive in storm-vext seas, if but one pearl
Of art or beauty therefrom may be wrung.
No pure-browed pensive nymph his Muse shall be,
10 An amazon of thought with sovereign eyes,
Whose kiss was poison, man-brained, worldly-wise,
Inspired that elfin, delicate harmony.
Rich gain for us! But with him is it well?
The poet who must sound earth, heaven, and hell!
82 EMMA LAZARUS
NlGHT-PlECE.
FROM GABiROL.
1
Night, and the heavens beam serene with peace,
Like a pure heart benignly smiles the moon.
Oh, guard thy blessed beauty from mischance,
This I beseech thee in all tender love.
See where the Storm his cloudy mantle spreads,
An ashy curtain covereth the moon.
As if the tempest thirsted for the rain,
The clouds he presses, till they burst in streams.
Heaven wears a dusky raiment, and the moon
Appeareth dead—her tomb is yonder cloud,
And weeping shades come after, like the people
Who mourn with tearful grief a noble queen.
But look! the thunder pierced night s close linked mail,
His keen-tipped lance of lightning brandishing;
He hovers like a seraph-conqueror.—
Dazed by the flaming splendor of his wings,
In rapid flight as in a whirling dance,
The black cloud-ravens hurry scared away.
So, though the powers of darkness chain my soul,
My heart, a hero, chafes and breaks its bonds.
DESTINY.
2
1856.
Paris, from throats of iron, silver, brass,
Joy-thundering cannon, blent with chiming bells,
1
 Lazarus translated this poem from the German of Abraham Geiger who had trans-
lated it from Solomon ibn Gabirol's Hebrew text. For the Hebrew text of this poem
with a facing page English translation, see The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, ed. T.
Carmi (NewYorkiViking, 1981), 304-306. For Geiger's translation, see Salomo Gabirol
und Seine Dichtungen (Leipzig, 1867), 51. For more on Gabirol, see note 2, p. 198.
2
 Lazarus wrote this pair of sonnets after learning of the death of Napoleon Eugene
Louis Jean Joseph, the Prince Imperial of France, son of Napoleon HI. The Prince
Imperial was born in 1856, and his birth and christening were publicly celebrated in
Paris. In 1879, while serving in the British army in southern Africa, the Prince
Imperial died in battle with a band of Zulus.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 83
85
10
15
20
And martial strains, the full-voiced paean swells.
The air is starred with flags, the chanted mass
5 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,
10 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-
Born to the purple, lying stark and dead,
Transfixed with poisoned spears, 'neath the sun
Of brazen Africa! Thy grave is one,
Forefated youth (on whom were visited
5 Follies and sins not thine), whereat the world,
Heartless howe'er it be, will pause to sing
A dirge, to breathe a sigh, a wreath to fling
Of rosemary and rue with bay-leaves curled.
Enmeshed in toils ambitious, not thine own,
10 Immortal, loved boy-Prince, thou tak'st thy stand
With early doomed Don Carlos, hand in hand
With mild-browed Arthur, Geoffrey s murdered son.
Louis the Dauphin lifts his thorn-ringed head,
And welcomes thee, his brother, 'mongst the dead.
1
All born to royal power, Don Carlos, Arthur, and Louis the Dauphin each died under
tragic circumstances at a young age. Don Carlos was the son of King Philip III of
Spain; Lazarus may have known his story from Friedrich Schiller's dramatic poem
Don Carlos (1787). Arthur was the son of Richard I of England (also known as
Geoffrey Plantagenet or Richard the Lion-Hearted); the story of his murder is told
in several places including Shakespeare's King John (1597). Louis the Dauphin was the
son of Louis XVI of France; following the execution of his father during the
Revolution, the Dauphin or Louis XVII was imprisoned and eventually died while
incarcerated.
84 EMMA LAZARUS
1
THE TAMING OF THE FALCON.
The bird sits spelled upon the lithe brown wrist
Of yonder turbaned fowler, who hath lamed
No feathered limb, but the winged spirit tamed
With his compelling eye. He need not twist
The silken toil, nor set the thick-limed snare; 5
He lures the wanderer with his steadfast gaze,
It shrinks, it quails, it trembles—yet obeys,
And lo! he has enslaved the thing of air.
The fixed, insistent human will is lord
Of all the earth;—but in the awful sky, 10
Reigns absolute, unreached by deed or word,
Above creation, through eternity,
Outshining the sun s shield, the lightning's sword,
The might of Allah s unaverted eye.
RASCHI IN PRAGUE.
1
Raschi of Troyes, the Moon of Israel,
The authoritative Talmudist, returned
From his wide wanderings under many skies,
To all the synagogues of the Orient,
Through Spain and Italy, the isles of Greece, 5
Beautiful, dolorous, sacred Palestine,
Dead, obelisked Egypt, floral, musk-breathed Persia,
Laughing with bloom, across the Caucasus,
The interminable sameness of bare steppes,
Through dark luxuriance of Bohemian woods, 10
And, issuing on the broad, bright Moldan vale,
2
Entered the gates of Prague. Here, too, his fame,
1
 Rashi (1040-1105), French rabbi from Troyes and author of important Biblical and
Talmudic commentaries. The story of Rashi s journey to Prague is a legend, one of
many about his life. In this poem, a mixture of fiction and historical details, Lazarus
mentions anachronistically some historical figures. Her sources for this poem have
not been precisely identified, but Zeiger has suggested some possibilities (54-55).
2
 The Vltava or Moldau is a river that runs through Prague.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 85
Being winged, preceded him. His people swarmed
Like bees to gather the rich honey-dew
15 Of learning from his lips. Amazement filled
All eyes beholding him. No hoary sage,
He who had sat in Egypt at the feet
Of Moses ben-Maimimi,
1
 called him friend;
Raschi the scholiast, poet, and physician,
20 Who bore the ponderous Bible s storied wisdom,
The Mischna's
2
 tangled lore at tip of tongue,
Light as a garland on a lance, appeared
In the just-ripened glory of a man.
From his clear eye youth flamed magnificent;
25 Force, masked by grace, moved in his balanced frame;
An intellectual, virile beauty reigned
Dominant on domed brow, on fine, firm lips,
An eagle profile cut in gilded bronze,
Strong, delicate as a head upon a coin,
30 While, as an aureole crowns a burning lamp,
Above all beauty of the body and brain
Shone beauty of a soul benign with love.
Even as a tawny flock of huddled sheep,
Grazing each other s heels, urged by one will,
35 With bleat and baa following the wether s lead,
Or the wise shepherd, so o'er the Moldan bridge
Trotted the throng of yellow-caftaned Jews,
Chattering, hustling, shuffling. At their head
Marched Rabbi Jochanan ben-Eleazar,
40 High priest in Prague, oldest and most revered,
To greet the star of Israel. As a father
Yearns toward his son, so toward the noble Raschi
Leapt at first sight the patriarch s fresh old heart.
"My home be thine in Prague! Be thou my son,
45 Who have no offspring save one simple girl.
See, glorious youth, who dost renew the days
1
 Maimonides (1135-1204), renowned North African Jewish philosopher, legal scholar,
and physician to Saladin (1137/38-1193), the famous Muslim hero and sultan of Egypt.
2
 Mishnah, the code of ancient rabbinical law.
86 EMMA LAZARUS
Of David and of Samuel, early graced
With God's anointing oil, how Israel
Delights to honor who hath honored him."
Then Raschi, though he felt a ball of fire 
Globe itself in his throat, maintained his calm,
His cheek's opaque, swart pallor, while he kissed
Silent the Rabbi's withered hand, and bowed
Divinely humble, his exalted head
Craving the benison.
For each who asked 55
He had the word of counsel, comfort, help;
For all, rich eloquence of thanks. His voice,
Even and grave, thrilled secret chords and set
Plain speech to music. Certain folk were there
Sick in the body, dragging painful limbs, 60
To the physician. These he solaced first,
With healing touch, with simples from his pouch,
Warming and lulling, best with promises
Of constant service till their ills were cured.
And some, gray-bearded, bald, and curved with age, 65
Blear-eyed from poring over lines obscure
And knotty riddles of the Talmud, brought
Their problems to this youth, who cleared and solved,
Yielding prompt answer to a life-time's search.
Then, followed, pushed by his obsequious tribe, 70
Who fain had pedestaled him on their backs,
Hemming his steps, choking the airs of heaven
With their oppressive honors, he advanced,
Midst shouts, tumultuous welcomes, kisses showered
Upon his road-stained garments, through Prague's streets, 75
Gaped at by Gentiles, hissed at and reviled,
But no whit altering his majestic mien
For overwhelming plaudits or contempt.
Glad tidings Raschi brought from West and East
Of thriving synagogues, of famous men, 80
And flourishing academies. In Rome
The Papal treasurer was a pious Jew,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 87
50
Rabbi Jehiel,
1
 neath whose patronage
Prospered a noble school. Two hundred Jews
85 Dwelt free and paid no tributary mark.
Three hundred lived in peace at Capua,
Shepherded by the learned Rabbi David,
2
A prince of Israel. In Babylon
The Jews established their Academy.
90 Another still in Bagdad, from whose chair
Preached the great rabbi, Samuel Ha-hir,
3
Versed in the written and the oral law,
Who blindfold could repeat the whole vast text
Of Mischna and Gemara.
4
 On the banks
95 Of Eden-born Euphrates, one day's ride
From Bagdad, Raschi found in the wilderness,
Which once was Babylon, Ezekiel's tomb.
Thrice ten perpetual lamps
5
 starred the dim shrine,
Two hundred sentinels held sleepless vigil,
100 Receiving offerings. At the Feast of Booths
6
Here crowded Jews by thousands, out of Persia,
From all the neighboring lands, to celebrate
The glorious memories of the golden days.
Ten thousand Jews with their Academy
105 Damascus boasted, while in Cairo shone
The pearl, the crown of Israel, ben-Maimuni,
Physician at the Court of Saladin,
The second Moses, gathering at his feet
Sages from all the world.
As Raschi spake,
no Forgetting or ignoring the chief shrine,
The Exile's Home, whereunto yearned all hearts,
1
 Jehiel ben Abraham was Pope Alexander Ill's minister of finance. In part because of
Alexander Ill's regard, Roman Jews did not pay taxes. See Graetz, Popular History of
the Jews, 3:250-51.
2
 David ben Abraham Alfasi (fl. loth century), Biblical scholar who lived in Palestine.
3 Samuel ben Ali ha-Levi (fl. i2th century), a Babylonian religious leader and scholar.
4 Commentary on the Mishnah. The Gemara and Mishnah together make up the
Talmud, the collection of early texts on Jewish civil and ceremonial law.
^ See note 3, p. 49.
Sukkoth, or the Feast ofTabernacles, a harvest festival.
88 EMMA LAZARUS
6
All ears were strained for tidings. Some one asked:
"What of Jerusalem? Speak to us of Zion"
The light died from his eyes. From depths profound
Issued his grave, great voice: "Alas for Zion! 115
Verily is she fallen! Where our race
Dictated to the nations, not a handful,
Nay, not a score, not ten, not two abide!
One, only one, one solitary Jew,
The Rabbi Abraham Haceba, flits
Ghostlike amid the ruins; every year
Beggars himself to pay the idolaters
The costly tax for leave to hold a-gape
His heart s live wound; to weep, a mendicant,
Amidst the crumbled stones of palaces 125
Where reigned his ancestors, upon the graves
Where sleep the priests, the prophets, and the kings
Who were his forefathers. Ask me no more!"
1
Now, when the French Jew s advent was proclaimed,
And his tumultuous greeting, envious growls 130
And ominous eyebeams threatened storm in Prague.
"Who may this miracle of learning be?
The Anti-Christ! The century-long-awaited,
The hourly-hoped Messiah, come at last!
Else dared they never wax so arrogant, 135
Flaunting their monstrous joy in Christian eyes
And strutting peacock-like, with hideous screams,
Who are wont to crawl, mute reptiles underfoot."
A stone or two flung at some servile form,
Liveried in the yellow gaberdine 140
(With secret happiness but half suppressed
On features cast for misery), served at first
For chance expression of the rabbles hate;
But, swelling like a snow-ball rolled along
1
 Lazarus may have gleaned this view of medieval Jerusalem from Rabbi Moses ben
Nahman or Nahmanides (1194-1270). See Graetz, History of the Jews, 3:605-607; Israel
Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1896), 219.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 89
120
145 By mischief-plotting boys, the rage increased,
Grew to a mighty mass, until it reached
The palace of DukeVladislaw. He heard
With righteous wrath his injured subjects' charge
Against presumptuous aliens: how these blocked
150 His avenues, his bridges; bared to the sun
The canker-taint of Prague's obscurest coigne;
1
Paraded past the churches of the Lord
One who denied Him, one by them hailed Christ.
Enough! This cloud, no bigger than one's hand,
155 Gains overweening bulk. Prague harbored, first,
Out of contemptuous ruth, a wretched band
Of outcast paupers, gave them leave to ply
Their money-lending trade, and leased them land
On all too facile terms. Behold! to-day,
160 Like leeches bloated with the people s blood,
They batten on Bohemia's poverty;
They breed and grow; like adders, spit back hate
And venomed perfidy for Christian love.
Thereat the Duke, urged by wise counselors—
165 Narzerad the statesman (half whose wealth was pledged
To the usurers), abetted by the priest,
Bishop of Olmiitz, who had visited
The Holy Sepulcher,
2
 whose long, full life
Was one clean record of pure piety—
170 The Duke, I say, by these persuasive tongues,
Coaxed to his darling aim, forbade his guards
To hinder the just anger of his town,
And ordered to be led in chains to him
The pilgrim and his host.
At noontide meal
175 Raschi sat, full of peace, with Jochanan,
And the sole daughter of the house, Rebekah,
Young, beautiful as her namesake when she brought
1
 An old-fashioned spelling of "coin," as in cornerstone or quoin. Jews arrived in
Prague in the tenth century, early in the city's history.
2
 The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. According to legend, the church is
built over the place where Jesus was buried.
90 EMMA LAZARUS
Her firm, frail pitcher balanced on her neck
Unto the well, and gave the stranger drink,
And gave his camels drink.
1
 The servant set 180
The sparkling jar's refreshment from his lips,
And saw the virgin's face, bright as the moon,
Beam from the curled luxuriance of black locks,
And cast-back linen veil's soft-folded cloud,
Then put the golden ear-ring by her cheek, 185
The bracelets on her hands, his master's pledge,
Isaac's betrothal gift, whom she should wed,
And be the mother of millions—one whose seed
Dwell in the gates of those which hate them.
So
Yearned Raschi to adorn the radiant girl 190
Who sat at board before him, nor dared lift
Shy, heavy lids from pupils black as grapes
That dart the imprisoned sunshine from their core.
But in her ears keen sense was born to catch,
And in her heart strange power to hold, each tone 195
O' the low-keyed, vibrant voice, each syllable
O' the eloquent discourse, enriched with tales
Of venturous travel, brilliant with fine points
Of delicate humor, or illustrated
With living portraits of world-famoused men, 200
Jews, Saracens, Crusaders, Islamites,
Whose hand he had grasped—the iron warrior,
Godfrey of Bouillon,
2
 the wise infidel
Who in all strength, wit, courtesy excelled
The kings his foes—imperial Saladin. 205
But even as Raschi spake an abrupt noise
Of angry shouts, of battering staves that shook
The oaken portal, stopped the enchanted voice.
The uplifted wine spilled from the nerveless hand
Of Rabbi Jochanan. "God pity us! 210
1
 See Genesis 24.
2
 Godfrey of Bouillon (c. 1060-1100), renowned French crusader and figure in several
medieval legends. He became ruler of Jersualem after the city's capture during the
First Crusade in 1099.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 9!
Our enemies are upon us once again.
Hie thee, Rebekah, to the inmost chamber,
Far from their wanton eyes' polluting gaze,
Their desecrating touch! Kiss me! Begone!
215 Raschi, my guest, my son"—But no word more
Uttered the reverend man. With one huge crash
The strong doors split asunder, pouring in
A stream of soldiers, ruffians, armed with pikes,
Lances, and clubs—the unchained beast, the mob.
220 "Behold the towns new guest!"jeered one who tossed
The half-filled golden wine-cup's contents straight
In the noble, pure young face. "What, master Jew!
Must your good friends of Prague break bolts and bars
To gain a peep at this prodigious pearl
225 You bury in your shell? Forth to the day!
Our Duke himself claims share of your new wealth;
Summons to court the Jew philosopher!"
Then, while some stuffed their pokes with baubles snatched
From board and shelf, or with malignant sword
230 Slashed the rich Orient rugs, the pictured woof
That clothed the wall; others had seized and bound,
And gagged from speech, the helpless, aged man;
Still others outraged, with coarse, violent hands,
The marble-pale, rigid as stone, strange youth,
235 Whose eye like struck flint flashed, whose nether lip
Was threaded with a scarlet line of blood,
Where the compressed teeth fixed it to forced calm.
He struggled not while his free limbs were tied,
His beard plucked, torn and spat upon his robe—
240 Seemed scarce to know these insults were for him;
But never swerved his gaze from Jochanan.
Then, in God's language, sealed from these dumb brutes,
Swiftly and low he spake: "Be of good cheer,
Reverend old man. I deign not treat with these.
245 If one dare offer bodily hurt to thee,
By the ineffable Name! I snap my chains
Like gossamer, and in his blood, to the hilt,
Bathe the prompt knife hid in my girdle's folds.
92 EMMA LAZARUS
The Duke shall hear me. Patience. Trust in me."
Somewhat the authoritative voice abashed, 250
Even hoarse and changed, the miscreants, who feared
Some strong curse lurked in this mysterious tongue,
Armed with this evil eye. But brief the spell.
With gibe and scoff they dragged their victims forth,
The abused old man, the proud, insulted youth, 255
O'er the late path of his triumphal march,
Befouled with mud, with raiment torn, wild hair
And ragged beard, to Vladislaw. He sat
Expectant in his cabinet. On one side
His secular adviser, Narzerad, 260
Quick-eyed, sharp-nosed, red-whiskered as a fox;
On the other hand his spiritual guide,
Bishop of Olmiitz, unctuous, large, and bland.
"So these twain are chief culprits!" sneered the Duke,
Measuring with the noble's ignorant scorn 265
His masters of a lesser caste. "Stand forth!
Rash, stubborn, vain old man, whose impudence
Hath choked the public highways with thy brood
Of nasty vermin, by our sufferance hid
In lanes obscure, who hailed this charlatan 270
With sky-flung caps, bent knees, and echoing shouts,
Due to ourselves alone in Prague; yea, worse,
Who offered worship even ourselves disclaim,
Our Lord Christ's meed, to this blaspheming Jew—
Thy crimes have murdered patience. Thou hast wrecked 275
Thy people's fortune with thy own. But first
(For even in anger we are just) recount
With how great compensation from thy store
Of hoarded gold and jewels thou wilt buy
Remission of the penalty. Be wise. 280
Hark how my subjects, storming through the streets,
Vent on thy tribe accursed their well-based wrath."
And, truly, through closed casements roared the noise
Of mighty surging crowds, derisive cries,
And victims' screams of anguish and affright. 285
Then Raschi, royal in his rags, began:
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 93
"Hear me, my liege!" At that commanding voice,
The Bishop, who with dazed eyes had perused
The grieved, wise, beautiful, pale face, sprang up,
290 Quick recognition in his glance, warm joy
Aflame on his broad cheeks. "No more! No more!
Thou art the man! Give me the hand to kiss
That raised me from the shadow of the grave
In Jaffa's lazar-house! Listen, my liege!
295 During my pilgrimage to Palestine
I, sickened with the plague and nigh to death,
Languished 'midst strangers, all my crumbling flesh
One rotten mass of sores, a thing for dogs
To shy from, shunned by Christian as by Turk,
300 When lo! this clean-breathed, pure-souled, blessed youth,
Whom I, not knowing for an infidel,
Seeing featured like the Christ, believed a saint,
Sat by my pillow, charmed the sting from pain,
Quenched the fierce fever's heat, defeated Death;
305 And when I was made whole, had disappeared,
No man knew whither, leaving no more trace
Than a re-risen angel.This is he!"
Then Raschi, who had stood erect, nor quailed
From glances of hot hate or crazy wrath,
310 Now sank his eagle gaze, stooped his high head,
Veiling his glowing brow, returned the kiss
Of brother-love upon the Christian's hand,
And dropping on his knees implored the three:
"Grace for my tribe! They are what ye have made.
315 If any be among them fawning, false,
Insatiable, revengeful, ignorant, mean—
And there are many such—ask your own hearts
What virtues ye would yield for planted hate,
Ribald contempt, forced, menial servitude,
320 Slow centuries of vengeance for a crime
Ye never did commit? Mercy for these!
Who bear on back and breast the scathing brand
Of scarlet degradation, who are clothed
In ignominious livery, whose bowed necks
94 EMMA LAZARUS
Are broken with the yoke. Change these to men! 325
That were a noble witchcraft simply wrought,
God's alchemy transforming clods to gold.
If there be one among them, strong and wise,
Whose lips anoint breathe poetry and love,
Whose brain and heart served ever Christian need— 330
And there are many such—for his dear sake,
Lest ye chance murder one of Gods high priests,
Spare his thrice-wretched tribe! Believe me, sirs,
Who have seen various lands, searched various hearts,
I have yet to touch that undiscovered shore, 335
Have yet to fathom that impossible soul,
Where a true benefit's forgot; where one
Slight deed of common kindness sown yields not
As now, as here, abundant crop of love.
Every good act of man, our Talmud says, 340
Creates an angel, hovering by his side.
l
Oh! what a shining host, great Duke, shall guard
Thy consecrated throne, for all the lives
Thy mercy spares, for all the tears thy ruth
Stops at the source. Behold this poor old man, 345
Last of a line of princes, stricken in years,
As thy dead father would have been to-day.
Was that white beard a rag for obscene hands
To tear? a weed for lumpish clowns to pluck?
Was that benignant, venerable face 350
Fit target for their foul throats' voided rheum?
That wrinkled flesh made to be pulled and pricked,
Wounded by flinty pebbles and keen steel?
Behold the prostrate, patriarchal form,
Bruised, silent, chained. Duke, such is Israel!" 355
"Unbind these men!" commandedVladislaw.
"Go forth and still the tumult of my town.
Let no Jew suffer violence. Raschi, rise!
1
 This may be a reference to Shabbath 322.: "A man's good deeds are his Parakletin
['defenders'] at the heavenly court." See Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 5:77.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 95
Thou who hast served the Christ—with this priest s life,
360 Who is my spirit s counselor—Christ serves thee.
Return among thy people with my seal,
The talisman of safety. Let them know
The Duke s their friend. Go, publish the glad news!"
Raschi the Saviour, Raschi the Messiah
365 Back to the Jewry carried peace and love.
But Narzerad fed his venomed heart with gall,
Vowing to give his fatal hatred vent,
Despite a world of weak, fantastic Dukes
And heretic bishops. He fulfilled his vow.
ASSURANCE.
Last night I slept, & 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.
5 The air was dank with dew, between the trees,
The hidden glow-worms kindled & were spent.
Cheek pressed to cheek, the cool, the hot night-breeze
Mingled our hair, our breath, & came & went,
As sporting with our passion. Low & deep,
10 Spake in mine ear her voice:
"And didst thou dream,
This could be buried? this could be asleep?
And love be thrall to death? Nay, whatso seem,
Have faith, dear heart; this is the thing that is\"
Thereon I woke, and on my lips her kiss.
ECHOES.
1
Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope,
The freshness of the elder lays, the might
Of manly, modern passion shall alight
1
 In her manuscript book of poems, Lazarus dates this sonnet Oct. 10,1880.
96 EMMA LAZARUS
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 5
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, 10
Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,
Misprize thou not these echoes that belong
To one in love with solitude and song.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 97
From Poems and Ballads ofHeinrich Heine
(iSSi)
1
Morphine.
Marked is the likeness 'twixt the beautiful
And youthful brothers, albeit one appear
Far paler than the other, more serene;
Yea, I might almost say, far comelier
5 Than his dear brother, who so lovingly
Embraced me in his arms. How tender, soft
Seemed then his smile, and how divine his glance!
No wonder that the wreath of poppy-flowers
About his head brought comfort to my brow,
10 And with its mystic fragrance soothed all pain
From out my soul. But such delicious balm
A little while could last. I can be cured
Completely only when that other youth,
The grave, pale brother, drops at last his torch.
15 Lo, sleep is good, better is death—in sooth
The best of all were never to be born.
2
1
 The following translations are from Heine's Buck der Lieder [Book of Songs] (1827),
with the exception of "Morphine," a poem left unpublished at Heine's death, and
"DerAsra"from Romanzero (1851). The German texts used for these translations are
from the edition Lazarus owned: Heinrich Heine, Sdmmtliche Werke, ed. Adolf
Strodtmann, 21 vols. (Hamburg, 1861-67). A twenty-two volume version appeared
from the same publisher, Hoffmann und Campe, in 1876.The best current edition of
Heine's work is Historisch-Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, Diisseldorfer Ausgabe, ed.
Manfred Windfuhr et a/., 16 vols. (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1973-97.) Buck
der Lieder is in vol. i; Romanzero and unpublished poems in vol. 3. For more on Heine
and Lazarus's perspective on his work, see her essay "The Poet Heine," pages 281-88.
2
 In Greek mythology Hypnos (the god of sleep) andThanatos (the god of death) are
twin brothers.
98 EMMA LAZARUS
Homeward Bound.
LXV.
1
He who for the first time loves,
E'en rejected, is a god.
He who loves a second time,
Unrequited, is a fool.
Such a fool am I, in loving 5
Once again with no return.
Sun and moon and stars are laughing
I am laughing too—and dying.
The Asra.
2
Daily the fair Sultan's daughter
Wanders to and fro at twilight
By the margin of the fountain,
Where the waters white are rippling.
Daily the young slave at twilight 5
Stands beside the fountain's margin,
Where the waters white are rippling,
Daily he grows pale and paler.
There one evening moved the princess
Toward the slave with words swift-spoken 10
"Tell me, tell me what thy name is,
Where thy home is, what thy lineage?"
Spake the youthful slave: "My name is
Mahomet, I come from Yemen;
1
 When it appeared in the poem sequence "Die Heimkehr" in Buck der Lieder, this
poem was numbered LXIII. See Heine, Werke, 1:275.
2
 This story also appears in "Le Divan de 1'Amour" in Stendahl, De I'Amour (1822),
chap. 53.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 99
is And by birth I am an Asra,
One who dieth when he loves."
Song.
There stands a lonely pine-tree
In the north, on a barren height;
He sleeps while the ice and snow flakes
Swathe him in folds of white.
5 He dreameth of a palm-tree
Far in the sunrise-land,
Lonely and silent longing
On her burning bank of sand.
An Apparition in the Sea.
I however lay on the edge of the vessel,
And gazed with dreamy eyes
Down into the glass-clear water.
And gazed deeper and deeper,
5 Deep down into the bottom of the sea.
At first like a twilight mist,
Then gradually more distinctly colored,
Domes of churches and towers arose,
And at last, as clear as sunshine, a whole city,
10 An antique Netherland city,
Enlivened with people.
Grave men with black mantles,
And white ruffs, and chains of honor,
And long swords and long faces,
15 Strode over the swarming market-place,
Towards the court-house with its high steps,
Where the stone effigies of emperors
Kept guard with scepter and sword.
Near by, past long rows of houses,
20 Past casements like polished mirrors,
And pyramidal, clipped lindens,
100 EMMA LAZARUS
Wandered, in rustling silks, the young maidens,
With slender forms, and flower-faces
Decently encircled by their black hoods,
And their waving golden hair. 25
Motley-clad folk in Spanish garb
Strut past and salute each other.
Elderly dames
In brown, old-fashioned attire,
Missal and rosary in hand,
Hasten with tripping steps
Toward the great cathedral,
Drawn thither by the chiming bells,
And by the deep-voiced tones of the organ.
And the far-off chimes smite me also 35
With mysterious awe.
Insatiable yearning, profound sadness
Steal into my heart,
Into my scarcely-healed heart.
I feel as if its wounds 40
Were kissed open by beloved lips,
And began to bleed afresh,
With hot, red drops,
That fall long and slowly,
On an old house below there, 45
In the deep city of the sea;—
On an old high-gabled house,
SacUy deserted by all living creatures,
Save that in the lower window,
Sits a maiden, 50
Her head resting on her arms,
Like a poor, forsaken child,
And I know thee, thou poor forsaken child.
Deep down, deep as the sea,
Thou hiddest thyself from me, 55
In a childish freak,
And never couldst rise again.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 101
30
And thou sat st a stranger among strangers
Through long ages,
60 Whilst I, my soul full of grief,—
I sought thee over the whole earth.
Forever I sought thee,
Thou ever-beloved,
Thou long-lost,
65 Thou found at last!
I have found thee, and I see once more
Thy sweet face,
The wise, loyal eyes,
The daring smile,
70 And never again will I leave thee,
And I come down to thee now,
And with wide-stretched arms,
I leap down upon thy breast.
But just at the right moment
75 The captain seized me by the foot,
And drew me from the edge of the vessel,
And cried with a peevish laugh,
"Doctor, are you possessed by the devil?"
Question.
By the sea, by the desolate nocturnal sea,
Stands a youthful man,
His breast full of sadness, his head full of doubt.
And with bitter lips he questions the waves:
5 "Oh solve me the riddle of life!
The cruel, world-old riddle,
Concerning which, already many a head hath been racked.
Heads in hieroglyphic-hats,
Heads in turbans and in black caps,
10 Periwigged heads, and a thousand other
Poor, sweating human heads.
Tell me, what signifies man?
102 EMMA LAZARUS
Whence does he come? wither does he go?
Who dwells yonder above the golden stars?"
The waves murmur their eternal murmur, 15
The winds blow, the clouds flow past.
Cold and indifferent twinkle the stars,
And a fool awaits an answer.
CITY VisiONS.
1
I.
As the blind Milton's memory of light,
The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone,
Wrought joys for them surpassing all things known
In our restricted sphere of sound and sight, —
So while the glaring streets of brick and stone 5
Vex 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, 10
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.
Who grasps the substance? who 'mid shadows strays?
He who within some dark-bright wood reclines,
'Twixt sleep and waking, where the needled pines
Have cushioned all his couch with soft brown sprays?
He notes not how the living water shines, 5
Trembling along the cliff, a flickering haze,
Brimming a wine-bright pool, nor lifts his gaze
To read the ancient wonders and the signs.
Does he possess the actual, or do I,
1
 In her manuscript book of poems, Lazarus dates these sonnets August 1881.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 103
io Who paint on air more than his sense receives,
The glittering pine-tufts with closed eyes behold,
Breathe the strong resinous perfume, see the sky
Quiver like azure flame between the leaves,
And open unseen gates with key of gold?
PROGRESS AND POVERTY.
[After reading Mr. Henry George's Book.]
l
Oh splendid age when Science lights her lamp
At the brief lightnings momentary flame,
Fixing it steadfast as a star, man s name
Upon the very brow of heaven to stamp!
5 Launched on a ship whose iron-cuirassed sides
Mock storm and wave. Humanity sails free;
Gayly upon a vast, untraveled sea,
O'er pathless wastes, to ports undreamed she rides,
Richer than Cleopatra's barge of gold,
io This vessel, manned by demi-gods, with freight
Of priceless marvels. But where yawns the hold
In that deep, reeking hell, what slaves be they,
Who feed the ravenous monster, pant and sweat,
Nor know if overhead reign night or day?
1
 Henry George (1839-97), economist and author of Progress and Poverty (1879). Written
during a period of economic recession in the mid-18708, Progress and Poverty attempts
to explain why poverty deepens alongside increases in wealth. The fundamental prob-
lem, as George sees it, is rents: "the failure of wages to increase with increasing produc-
tive power is due to the increase in rents.... Rent swallows up the whole gain and
pauperism accompanies progress" (Progress and Poverty [NewYork: Robert Schalkenbach
Foundation, 1940], 222, 224).The land belongs to the people, he reasons, and rent is
thus a form of "continuous robbery" (364) in which capitalist land owners increase their
own wealth by impoverishing the workers who actually make the land productive.The
proposed solution is "to appropriate rent by taxation" (406) and eliminate all other taxes.
George supports his ideas with economic reasoning, humanitarian arguments, appeals
to self-evident facts, panoramic takes on world history and religion, and a critique of
classical economists, especially Malthus. Although economists generally rejected
George's ideas, Progress and Poverty generated widespread interest.
IO4 EMMA LAZARUS
LAURA'S DEATH.
Fragment Translated from Petrarca.
r
Now since nor grief nor fear was longer there,
Each thought on her fair face was clear to see,
Composed into the calmness of despair.
Not like a flame extinguished violently,
But one consuming of its proper light. 5
Even so, in peace, serene of soul, passed she;
Even as a lamp, so lucid, softly-bright,
Whose sustenance doth fail by slow degrees,
Wearing unto the end, its wonted plight.
Not pale—but whiter than the snow one sees 10
Flaking a hillside through the windless air.
Like one o'erwearied, she reposed in peace.
As 'twere a sweet sleep filled each lovely eye,
The soul already having fled from there.
And this is what dull fools have named to die! 15
Upon her fair face Death itself seemed fair.
TRIUMPH OF LOVE.
Fragment from Petrarch.
2
I know how well Love shoots, how swift his flight,
How now by force and now by stealth he steals,
How he will threaten now, anon will smite,
And how unstable are his chariot wheels.
How doubtful are his hopes, how sure his pain, 5
And how his faithful promise he repeals.
How in one's marrow, in one's vital vein,
His smouldering fire quickens a hidden wound,
Where death is manifest, destruction plain.
1
 Translation of the final lines of the first canto of Petrarch's Triumphus Mortis [Triumph
of Death] (written 1348).
2
 Translation of the final lines of the third canto of Petrarch s Triumphus Cupidinis (writ-
ten c. 1338). In The Poems of Emma Lazarus, her sisters give the poem its Italian title,
"Trionfo d'Amore." In her manuscript book of poems, Lazarus titles these lines
"Fragment from Petrarch" and "Triumph of Love," the titles preferred here.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 105
io In sum, how erring, fickle and unsound,
How timid and how bold are lovers' days,
Where with scant sweetness bitter draughts abound.
I know their songs, their sighs, their usual ways,
Their broken speech, their sudden silences.
15 Their passing laughter and their grief that stays,
I know how mixed with gall their honey is.
106 EMMA LAZARUS
SONG S OF A SEMITE:
THE DANCE TO DEATH,
AN D OTHER POEMS,
BY
EMMA LAZARUS
This page intentionally left blank 
THE DANCE TO DEATH;
A HISTORICAL TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS,
BY
EMMA LAZARUS.
This play is dedicated,
in profound veneration and respect
to the memory of
George Eliot,
the illustrious writer,
who did most among the artists of our day
towards elevating and ennobling
the spirit of Jewish nationality.
The Persons.
FREDERICK THE GRAVE—Landgrave of Thuringia and Margrave of
Meissen, Protector and Patron of the Free City of Nordhausen.
PRINCE WILLIAM OF MEISSEN—His Son.
SUSSKIND VON ORB—A Jew.
HENRY SCHNETZEN—Governor of Salza.
HENRY NORDMANN OF NORDMANNSTEIN—Knight of Treffurt.
REINHARD PEPPERCORN—Prior ofWartburg Monastery.
RABBI JACOB.
DIETRICH VON TETTENBORN—President of the Council.
REUBEN VON ORB—a boy, Siisskind s son.
BARUCH, ^
XT r J
ews
-
NAPHTALI, )
RABBI CRESSELIN.
LAY BROTHER.
PAGE.
PUBLIC SCRIVENER
PRINCESS MATHILDIS—Wife to Frederick.
LlEBHAID VON ORB.
CLAIRE CRESSELIN.
Jews, Jewesses, Burghers, Senators, [Citizens, Citizens Wife & Boy,]
1
Flagellants, Servants, Guardsmen.
SCENE:—Partly in Nordhausen, partly in Eisenach.
TIME:—May 4th, 5th, 6th, 1349.
1
 Not listed in the dramatis personae of the 1882 printing. Lazarus later indicated that
this omission was a mistake. See Lazarus to Philip Cowen, 30 Sept. [1882], in
Schappes, 385-86.
This page intentionally left blank 
SCENE I. A Street in the Judengasse,
1
 outside the Synagogue.
During this scene Jews and Jewesses, singly and in groups, with
prayer-books in their hands pass across the stage and go into
the Synagogue. Among them, enter Baruch and Naphtali.
NAPHTALI. Hast seen him yet?
BARUCH. Nay; Rabbi Jacob's door
Swung to behind him, just as I puffed up
O'erblown with haste. See how our years weigh, cousin.
Who'd judge me with this paunch a temperate man,
A man of modest means, a man withal 5
Scarce overpast his prime? Well, God be praised,
If age bring no worse burden! Who is this stranger?
Simon the Leech tells me he claims to bear
Some special message from the Lord—no doubt
To-morrow, fresh from rest, he'll publish it 10
Within the Synagogue.
NAPHTALI. To-morrow, man?
He will not hear of rest—he comes anon—
Shall we within?
BARUCH. Rather let's wait,
And scrutinize him as he mounts the street.
Since you denote him so remarkable, 15
You've whetted my desire.
NAPHTALI. A blind, old man,
Mayhap is all you'll find him—spent with travel,
His raiment fouled with dust, his sandaled feet
Road-bruised by stone and bramble. But his face!—
Majestic with long fall of cloud-white beard, 20
And hoary wreath of hair—oh, it is one
Already kissed by angels.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
H3
The Dance to Death.
ACT I.—In Nordhausen.
1
 Jewish lane (German).
BARUCH. Look, there limps
Little Manasseh, bloated as his purse,
And wrinkled as a frost-pinched fruit. I hear
25 His last loan to the Syndic will result
In quadrupling his wealth. Good Lord! what luck
Blesses some folk, while good men stint and sweat
And scrape, to merely fill the household larder.
What said you of this pilgrim, Naphtali?
30 These inequalities of fortune rub
My sense of justice so against the grain,
I lose my very name. Whence does he come?
Is he alone?
NAPHTALI. He comes from Chinon, France,
Rabbi Cresselin he calls himself—alone
35 Save for his daughter who has led him hither.
A beautiful, pale girl with round black eyes.
BARUCH. Bring they fresh tidings of the pestilence?
NAPHTALI. I know not—but I learn from other source
It has burst forth at Erfurt.
BARUCH. God have mercy!
Have many of our tribe been stricken?
40 NAPHTALI. No.
They cleanse their homes and keep their bodies sweet,
Nor cease from prayer—and so does Jacob's God
Protect His chosen, still.Yet even His favor
Our enemies would twist into a curse.
45 Beholding the destroying angel smite
The foul idolater and leave unscathed
The gates of Israel—the old cry they raise—
We have begotten the Black Death—we poison
The well-springs of the towns.
BARUCH. God pity us!
50 But truly are we blessed in Nordhausen.
Such terrors seem remote as Egypt's plagues.
I warrant you our Landgrave
1
 dare not harry
Such creditors as we. See, here comes one,
1
 A medieval German nobleman with jurisdiction over a particular territory.
114 EMMA LAZARUS
The greatest and most liberal of them all—
Siisskind von Orb.
(Siisskind von Orb, Liebhaid and Reuben enter, all pass across
the stage, and disappear within the Synagogue.)
I'd barter my whole fortune, 55
And yours to boot, that's thrice the bulk of mine,
For half the bonds he holds in Frederick's name.
The richest merchant in Thuringia, he—
The poise of his head would tell it, knew we not.
How has his daughter leaped to womanhood! 60
I mind when she came toddling by his hand,
But yesterday—a flax-haired child—to-day
Her brow is level with his pompous chin.
NAPHTALI. How fair she is! Her hair has kept its gold
Untarnished still. I trace not either parent 65
In her face, clean cut as a gem.
BARUCH. Her mother
Was far-off kin to me, and I might pass,
I'm told, unguessed in Christian garb. I know
A pretty secret of that scornful face.
It lures high game to Nordhausen.
NAPHTALI. Baruch, 70
I marvel at your prompt credulity.
The Prince of Meissen and Liebhaid von Orb!
A jest for gossips and—Look, look, he comes!
BARUCH. Who's that, the Prince?
NAPHTALI. Nay, dullard, the old man,
The Rabbi of Chinon. Ah! his stout staff, 75
And that brave creature s strong young hand suffice
Scarcely to keep erect his tottering frame.
Emaciate-lipped, with cavernous black eyes
Whose inward visions do eclipse the day,
Seems he not one re-risen from the grave 80
To yield the secret?
(Enter Rabbi Jacob, and Rabbi Cresselin led by Claire. They walk
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
H5
across the stage, and disappear in the Synagogue.)
BARUCH. (Exaltedly.) Blessed art thou, O Lord,
King of the Universe, who teachest wisdom
To those who fear thee!
1
NAPHTALI. Haste we in. The star
Of Sabbath dawns.
BARUCH. My flesh is still a-creep
85 From the strange gaze of those wide-rolling orbs.
Didst note, man, how they fixed me? His lean cheeks,
As wan as wax, were bloodless; how his arms
Stretched far beyond the flowing sleeve and showed
Gaunt, palsied wrists, and hands blue-tipped with death!
90 Well, I have seen a sage of Israel.
(They enter the Synagogue. Scene closes.)
SCENE II. The Synagogue crowded with worshippers. Among the
women in the Gallery are discovered Liebhaid von Orb and
Claire Cresselin. Below, among the men, Siisskind von Orb
and Reuben. At the Readers Desk, Rabbi Jacob. Fronting the
audience under the Ark of the Covenant, stands a high desk,
behind which is seen the white head of an old man bowed in
prayer. Baruch and Naphtali enter and take their seats.
BARUCH. Think you he speaks before the service?
NAPHTALI. Yea.
Lo, phantom-like the towering patriarch!
(Rabbi Cresselin slowly rises beneath the Ark.)
RABBI CRESSELIN. Woe unto Israel! woe unto all
Abiding 'mid strange peoples! Ye shall be
5 Cut off from that land where ye made your home.
I, Cresselin of Chinon, have traveled far,
1
 These words are the customary formula of Jewish prayer on seeing a wise man of
Israel. (Lazarus's note.)
n6 EMMA LAZARUS
Thence where my fathers dwelt, to warn my race,
For whom the fire and stake have been prepared.
Our brethren of Verdun, all over France,
Are burned alive beneath the Goyim's torch. 10
What terrors have I witnessed, ere my sight
Was mercifully quenched! In Gascony,
In Savoy, Piedmont, round the garden shores
Of tranquil Leman, down the beautiful Rhine,
At Lindau, Costnitz, Schaffhausen, St. Gallen, 15
Everywhere torture, smoking Synagogues,
Carnage and burning flesh. The lights shine out
Of Jewish virtue, Jewish truth, to star
The sanguine field with an immortal blazon.
The venerable Mar-Isaac in Cologne,
1
 20
Sat in his house at prayer, nor lifted lid
From off the sacred text, while all around
The fanatics ran riot; him they seized,
Haled through the streets, with prod of stick and spike
Fretted his wrinkled flesh, plucked his white beard, 25
Dragged him with gibes into their Church, and held
A Crucifix before him. "Know thy Lord!"
He spat thereon; he was pulled limb from limb.
I saw—God, that I might forget!—a man
Leap in the Loire, with his fair, stalwart son, 30
A-bloom with youth, and midst the stream unsheathe
A poniard, sheathing it in his boy's heart,
While he pronounced the blessing for the dead.
"Amen!" the lad responded as he sank,
And the white water darkened as with wine. 35
I saw—but no! You are glutted, and my tongue,
Blistered, refuseth to narrate more woe.
I have known much sorrow. When it pleased the Lord
To afflict us with the horde of Pastoureaux,
2
The rabble of armed herdsmen, peasants, slaves, 40
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS Iiy
1
 Jewish martyr murdered by Crusaders in 1096. See Graetz, History of the Jews, 3:304.
2
 The "Pastoureaux" or "shepherds" were a group of about 40,000 French peasants
who murdered and persecuted Jews during a mass uprising in 1320. See Graetz,
History of the Jews, 4:55-57.
Men-beasts of burden—coarse as the earth they tilled,
Who like an inundation deluged France
To drown our race—my heart held firm, my faith
Shook not upon her rock until I saw,
45 Smit by God's beam, the big, black cloud dissolve.
Then followed with their scythes, spades, clubs and banners
Flaunting the Cross, the hosts of Armleder,
1
From whose fierce wounds we scarce are healed to-day.
Yet do I say the cup of bitterness
50 That Israel has drained is but a draught
Of cordial, to the cup that is prepared.
The Black Death and the Brothers of the Cross,
2
These are our foes—and these are everywhere.
I who am blind, see ruin in their wake,
55 Ye who have eyes and limbs, arise and flee!
To-morrow the Flagellants will be here.
God's angel visited my sleep and spake ...
"Thy Jewish kin in the Thuringian town
Of Nordhausen shall be swept off from earth,
60 Their elders and their babes—consumed with fire.
Go, summon Israel to flight—take this
As sign that I, who call thee, am the Lord,
Thine eyes shalt be struck blind till thou hast spoken."
Then darkness fell upon my mortal sense,
65 But light broke o'er my soul, and all was clear,
And I have journeyed hither with my child
O'er mount and river, till I have announced
The message of the Everlasting God.
(Sensation in the Synagogue.)
RABBI JACOB. Father, have mercy! when wilt thou have
done
1
 In 1336-37 a group of peasants led by two noblemen called the Armleder (for a
leather band worn on the arm) massacred numerous Jews in Germany.
2
 Sect of medieval religious enthusiasts who persecuted Jews. Also known as the "flagel-
lants," they scourged themselves as an act of piety.
118 EMMA LAZARUS
With rod and scourge? Beneath thy children's feet 70
Earth splits, fire springs. No rest, no rest, no rest!
AVoiCE. Look to the women! Mariamne swoons!
ANOTHER VOICE. Woe unto us who sinned!
ANOTHER VOICE. We're all dead men.
Fly, fly ere dawn as our forefathers fled
From out the land of Egypt.
BARUCH. Are ye mad? 75
Shall we desert snug homes? forego the sum
Scraped through laborious years to smooth life's slope,
And die like dogs unkenneled and untombed,
At bidding of a sorrow-crazed old man?
A VOICE. He flouts the Lord's anointed! Cast him forth! 80
SUSSKIND VON ORB. Peace, brethren, peace! If I have ever served
Israel with purse, arm, brain or heart—now hear me!
May God instruct my speech! This wise old man,
Whose brow flames with the majesty of truth,
May he part-blinded through excess of light, 85
As one who eyes too long the naked sun,
Setting in rayless glory, turns and finds
Outlines confused, familiar colors changed,
All objects branded with one blood-bright spot.
Nor chafe at Baruch's homely sense; truth floats
Midway between the stars and the abyss. 90
We, by God's grace, have found a special nest
I' the dangerous rock, screened against wind and hawk;
Free burghers of a free town, blessed moreover
With the peculiar favor of the Prince,
Frederick the Grave, our patron and protector. 95
What shall we fear? Rather, where shall we seek
Secure asylum, if here be not one?
Fly? Our forefathers had the wilderness,
The sea their gateway, and the fire-cored cloud
Their divine guide. Us, hedged by ambushed foes, 100
No frank, free, kindly desert shall receive.
Death crouches on all sides, prepared to leap
Tiger-like on our throats, when first we step
From this safe covert. Everywhere the Plague!
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 119
IDS As nigh as Erfurt it has crawled—the towns
Reek with miasma, the rank fields of spring,
Rain-saturated, are one beautiful—lie,
Smiling profuse life, and secreting death.
Strange how, unbidden, a trivial memory
no Thrusts itself on my mind in this grave hour.
I saw a large white bull urged through the town
To slaughter, by a stripling with a goad,
Whom but one sure stamp of that solid heel,
One toss of those mooned horns, one battering blow
115 Of that square marble forehead, would have crushed,
As we might crush a worm, yet on he trudged,
Patient, in powerful health to death. At once,
As though o' the sudden stung, he roared aloud,
Beat with fierce hoofs the air, shook desperately
120 His formidable head, and heifer-swift,
Raced through scared, screaming streets. Well, and the end?
He was the promptlier bound and killed and quartered.
The world belongs to man; dreams the poor brute
Some nook has been apportioned for brute life?
125 Where shall a man escape men's cruelty?
Where shall God's servant cower from his doom?
Let us bide, brethren—we are in His hand.
RABBI CRESSELIN. (Uttering a piercing shriek.) Ah!
Woe unto Israel! Lo, I see again,
As the Ineffable foretold. I see
130 A flood of fire that streams towards the town.
Look, the destroying Angel with the sword,
Wherefrom the drops of gall are raining down,
Broad-winged, comes flying towards you. Now he draws
His lightning-glittering blade! With the keen edge
He smiteth Israel—ah!
(He falls back dead. Confusion in the Synagogue.)
135 CLAIRE. (From the Gallery.) Father! My father!
Let me go down to him!
LIEBHAID. Sweet girl, be patient.
120 EMMA LAZARUS
This is the House of God, and He hath entered.
Bow we and pray.
(Meanwhile, some of the men surround and raise from the ground
the body of Rabbi Cresselin. Several voices speaking at once.)
IST VOICE. He's doomed.
20 VOICE. Dead! Dead!
30 VOICE. A judgment!
4TH VOICE. Make way there! Air! Carry him forth ! He's warm!
30 VOICE. Nay, his heart's stopped—his breath has ceased— 140
quite dead.
5TH VOICE. Didst mark a diamond lance flash from the roof?
And strike him 'twixt the eyes?
IST VOICE. Our days are numbered.
This is the token.
RABBI JACOB. Lift the corpse and pray.
Shall we neglect God's due observances,
While He is manifest in miracle? 145
I saw a blaze seven times more bright than fire,
Crest, halo-wise, the patriarch's white head.
The dazzle stung my burning lids—they closed,
One instant—when they oped, the great blank cloud
Had settled on his countenance forever. 150
1
 Departed brother, mayest thou find the gates
Of heaven open, see the city of peace,
And meet the ministering angels, glad,
Hastening towards thee! May the High Priest stand
To greet and bless thee! Go thou to the end! 155
Repose in peace and rise again to life.
No more thy sun sets, neither wanes thy moon.
The Lord shall be thy everlasting light,
Thy days of mourning shall be at an end.
For you, my flock, fear nothing; it is writ 160
As one his mother comforteth, so I
1
 From this point to the end of the scene is a literal translation of the Hebrew burial
service. (Lazarus s note.)
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 121
Will comfort you and in Jerusalem
Ye shall be comforted.
(Scene closes.)
SCENE III. Evening. A crooked byway in the Judengasse. Enter
Prince William.
PRINCE W. Cursed be these twisted lanes! I have missed the clue
Of the close labyrinth. Nowhere in sight,
Just when I lack it, a stray gaberdine
5 To pick me up my thread.Yet when I haste
Through these blind streets, unwishful to be spied,
Some dozen hawk-eyes peering o'er crook'd beaks
Leer recognition, and obsequious caps
Do kiss the stones to greet my princeship. Bah!
Strange, midst such refuse sleeps so white a pearl.
At last, here shuffles one. (Enter a Jew.)
10 Give you good even!
Sir, can you help me to the nighest way
Unto the merchant s house, Siisskind von Orb?
JEW. Whence come you knowing not the high brick wall,
Without, blank as my palm, o' the inner side,
15 Muring
1
 a palace? But—do you wish him well?
He is my friend—we must be wary, wary,
We all have warning—Oh, the terror of it!
I have not yet my wits!
PRINCE W. I am his friend.
Is he in peril? What's the matter, man?
20 JEW. Peril? His peril is no worse than mine,
But the rich win compassion. God is just,
And every man of us is doomed. Alack!
He said it—oh those wild, white eyes!
PRINCE W. I pray you,
Tell me the way to Slisskind's home.
JEW. Sweet master,
1
 Poetic spelling of "immuring" (confining within walls).
122 EMMA LAZARUS
You look the perfect knight, what can you crave 25
Of us starved, wretched Jews? Leave us in peace.
The Judengasse gates will shut anon,
Nor ope till morn again for Jew or Gentile.
PRINCE W. Here's gold. I am the Prince of Meissen—speak!
JEW. Oh pardon! Let me kiss your mantle's edge. 30
This way, great sir, I lead you there myself,
If you deign follow one so poor, so humble.
You must show mercy in the name of God,
For verily are we afflicted. Come.
Hard by is Siisskind s dwelling—as we walk 35
By your good leave I'll tell what I have seen.
(Exeunt.)
SCENE IV A luxuriously-furnished apartment in Siisskind von
Orb's house. Upon a richly-spread supper table stands the
seven-branched silver candlestick of the Sabbath eve. At the
table are seated Siisskind von Orb, Liebhaid, and Reuben.
SUSSKIND. Drink, children, drink! and lift your hearts to Him
Who gives us the vine's fruit. (They drink.)
How clear it glows;
Like gold within the golden bowl, like fire
Along our veins, after the work-day week
Rekindling Sabbath-fervor, Sabbath-strength. 5
Verily God prepares for me a table
In presence of mine enemies! He anoints
My head with oil, my cup is overflowing.
1
Praise we His name! Hast thou, my daughter, served
The needs o' the poor, suddenly-orphaned child? 10
Naught must she lack beneath my roof.
LIEBHAID. Yea, father.
She prays and weeps within: she had no heart
For Sabbath meal, but charged me with her thanks—
SUSSKIND. Thou shalt be mother and sister in one to her.
1
 See Psalm 23.5.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
123
Speak to her comfortably.
15 REUBEN. She has begged
A grace of me I happily can grant.
After our evening-prayer, to lead her back
Unto the synagogue, where sleeps her father,
A light at head and foot, o'erwatched by strangers;
She would hold vigil.
20 SUSSKIND. 'Tis a pious wish,
Not to be crossed, befitting Israel's daughter.
Go, Reuben; heavily the moments hang,
While her heart yearns to break beside his corpse.
Receive my blessing. (He places his hands upon his son's head in
benediction. Exit Reuben.)
Henceforth her home is here.
25 In the event to-night, God's finger points
Visibly out of heaven. A thick cloud
Befogs the future. But just here is light.
(Enter a servant ushering in Prince William.)
SERVANT. His highness Prince of Meissen. (Exit.)
SUSSKIND. Welcome, Prince!
God bless thy going forth and coming in!
30 Sit at our table and accept the cup
Of welcome which my daughter fills.
(Liebhaid offers him wine.)
PRINCE W. (drinking.) To thee! (All take their seats at the table.)
I heard disquieting news as I came hither.
The apparition in the Synagogue,
The miracle of the message and the death.
35 Siisskind von Orb, what think'st thou of these things?
SUSSKIND. I think, sir, we are in the hand of God,
I trust the Prince—your father and my friend.
PRINCE W. Trust no man! flee! I have not come to-night
To little purpose.Your arch enemy,
40 The Governor of Salza, Henry Schnetzen,
124 EMMA LAZARUS
Has won my father's ear. Since yestereve
He stops at Eisenach, begging of the Prince
The Jews' destruction.
SUSSKIND. (calmly.) Schnetzen is my foe,
I know it, but I know a talisman,
Which at a word transmutes his hate to love. 45
Liebhaid, my child, look cheerly. What is this?
Harm dare not touch thee; the oppressors curse,
Melts into blessing at thy sight.
LIEBHAID. Not fear
Plucks at my heart-strings, father, though the air
Thickens with portents; 'tis the thought of flight, 50
But no—I follow thee.
PRINCE W Thou shalt not miss
The value of a hair from thy home treasures.
All that thou lovest, Liebhaid, goes with thee,
Knowest thou, Siisskind, Schnetzen's cause of hate?
SUSSKIND. Tis rooted in an ancient error, born 55
During his feud with Landgrave Fritz the Bitten,
Your Highness' grandsire—ten years—twenty—back.
Misled to think I had betrayed his castle,
Who knew the secret tunnel to its courts,
He has nursed a baseless grudge, whereat I smile, 60
Sure to disarm him by the simple truth.
God grant me strength to utter it.
PRINCE W You fancy
The rancor of a bad heart slow distilled
Through venomed years, so at a breath, dissolves.
O good old man, i' the world, not of the world! 65
Belike, himself forgets the doubtful core
Of this still-curdling, petrifying ooze.
Truth? why truth glances from the callous mass,
A spear against a rock. He hugs his hate,
His bed-fellow, his daily, life-long comrade; 70
Think you he has slept, ate, drank with it this while,
Now to forego revenge on such slight cause
As the revealed truth?
SUSSKIND. You mistake my thought,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 125
Great-hearted Prince, and justly—for I speak
75 In riddles, till God's time to make all clear.
When His day dawns, the blind shall see.
PRINCE W. Forgive me,
If I, in wit and virtue your disciple,
Seem to instruct my master. Accident
Lifts me where I survey a broader field
80 Than wise men stationed lower. I spy peril,
Fierce flame invisible from the lesser peaks.
God's time is now. Delayed truth leaves a lie
Triumphant. If you harbor any secret,
Potent to force an ear that's locked to mercy,
In God's name, now disbosom it.
85 SUSSKIND. Kind Heaven!
Would that my people s safety were assured
So is my child's! Where shall we turn? Where flee?
For all around us the Black Angel broods.
We step into the open jaws of death
If we go hence.
90 PRINCE W. Better to fall beneath
The hand of God, than be cut off by man.
SUSSKIND. We are trapped, the springe is set. Not ignorantly
I offered counsel in the synagogue,
Quelled panic with authoritative calm,
95 But knowing, having weighed the opposing risks.
Our friends in Strasburg have been overmastered,
The imperial voice is drowned, the papal arm
Drops paralyzed—both, lifted for the truth;
1
We can but front with brave eyes, brow erect,
ioo As is our wont, the fullness of our doom.
PRINCE W. Then Meissen's sword champions your desperate
cause.
I take my stand here where my heart is fixed.
I love your daughter—if her love consent,
I pray you, give me her to wife.
LIEBHAID. Ah!
1
 See note i,p. 132.
126 EMMA LAZARUS
SUSSKIND. Prince,
Let not this Saxon skin, this hair's gold fleece, 105
These Rhine-blue eyes mislead thee—she is alien.
To the hearts core a Jewess—prop of my house,
Soul of my soul—and I? a despised Jew.
PRINCE W. Thy propped house crumbles; let my arm sustain
Its tottering base—thy light is on the wane no
Let me re-lume it. Give thy star to me,
Or ever pitch-black night engulf us all—
Lend me your voice, Liebhaid, entreat for me.
Shall this prayer be your first that he denies?
LEIBHAID. Father, my heart's desire is one with his. 115
SUSSKIND. Is this the will of God? Amen! My children,
Be patient with me, I am full of trouble.
For you, heroic Prince, could aught enhance
Your love's incomparable nobility,
'Twere the foreboding horror of this hour, 120
Wherein you dare flash forth its lightning-sword.
You reckon not, in the hot, splendid moment
Of great resolve, the cold insidious breath
Wherewith the outer world shall blast and freeze—
But hark! I own a mystic amulet, 125
Which you delivering to your gracious father,
Shall calm his rage withal, and change his scorn
Of the Jew's daughter, into pure affection.
I will go fetch it—though I drain my heart
Of its red blood, to yield this sacrifice. 130
(Exit Siisskind.)
PRINCE W. Have you no smile to welcome love with, Liebhaid?
Why should you tremble?
LIEBHAID. Prince, I am afraid!
Afraid of my own heart, my unfathomed joy,
A blasphemy against my father's grief,
My people's agony. I dare be happy— 135
So happy! in the instant s lull betwixt
The dazzle and the crash of doom.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 127
PRINCE W. You read
The omen falsely; rather is your joy
The thrilling harbinger of general dawn.
140 Did you not tell me scarce a month agone,
When I chanced in on you at feast and prayer,
The holy time s bright legend? of the queen,
Strong, beautiful, resolute, who denied her race
To save her race, who cast upon the die
145 Of her divine and simple loveliness,
Her life, her soul,—and so redeemed her tribe.
You are my Esther—but I, no second tyrant,
Worship whom you adore, love whom you love!
LIEBHAID. If I must die with morn, I thank my God.
150 And thee, my king, that I have lived this night.
(Enter Siisskind carrying a jewelled casket.)
SUSSKIND. Here is the chest, sealed with my signet-ring,
A mystery and a treasure lies within,
Whose worth is faintly symboled by these gems,
Starring the case. Deliver it unopened,
155 Unto the Landgrave. Now, sweet Prince, good night.
Else will the Judengasse gates be closed.
PRINCE W. Thanks, father, thanks. Liebhaid, my bride, goodnight.
(He kisses her brow. Siisskind places his hands on the heads of
Liebhaid and Prince William.)
SUSSKIND. Blessed, Oh Lord, art thou, who bringest joy
To bride and bridegroom. Let us thank the Lord.
(Curtain falls.)
END OF ACT I.
128 EMMA LAZARUS
ACT II.—At Eisenach.
SCENE I. A Room in the Landgrave s Palace. Frederick the Grave
and Henry Schnetzen.
LANDGRAVE. Who tells thee of my sons love for the Jewess?
SCHNETZEN. Who tells me? Ask the Judengasse walls,
The garrulous stones publish Prince William s visits
To his fair mistress.
LANDGRAVE. Mistress? ah, such sins
The Provost of St. George's will remit 5
For half a pound of coppers.
SCHNETZEN. Think it not!
No light amour this, leaving shield unflecked;
He woos the Jewish damsel as a knight
The lady of his heart.
LANDGRAVE. Impossible!
SCHNETZEN. Things more impossible have chanced. Remember 10
Count Gleichen, doubly wived, who pined in Egypt,
There wed the Pasha s daughter Malachsala,
Nor blushed to bring his heathen paramour
Home to his noble wife Angelica,
Countess of Orlamund.Yea, and the Pope 15
Sanctioned the filthy sin.
1
LANDGRAVE. Himself shall say it.
Ho, Gunther! (Enter a lackey.) Bid the Prince of Meissen here.
(Exit Lackey. The Landgrave paces the stage in agitation. Enter
Prince William.)
PRINCE W. Father, you called me?
LANDGRAVE. Ay, when were you last
In Nordhausen?
1
 In Franz Schubert's unfinished opera, Der Graf von Gleichen (composed 1827-28), an
already married crusader, Gleichen, weds an Egyptian princess who has helped free
him from prison.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 129
PRINCE W. This morning I rode hence.
LANDGRAVE. Were you at Siisskind's house?
20 PRINCE W. I was, my liege.
LANDGRAVE. I hear you entertain unseemly love
For the Jew's daughter.
PRINCE W. Who has told thee this?
SCHNETZEN. This I have told him.
PRINCE W. Father, believe him not.
I swear by heaven 'tis no unseemly love
Leads me to Siisskind's house.
25 LANDGRAVE. With what high title
Please you to qualify it?
PRINCE W. True, I love
Liebhaid von Orb, but 'tis the honest passion
Wherewith a knight leads home his equal wife.
LANDGRAVE. Great God! and thou wilt brag thy shame!
Thou speakest
30 Of wife and Jewess in one breath! Wilt make
Thy princely name a stench in German nostrils?
PRINCE W. Hold, father, hold! You know her—yes, a Jewess
In her domestic piety, her soul
Large, simple, splendid like a star, her heart
35 Suffused with Syrian sunshine—but no more—
The aspect of a Princess of Thuringia,
Swan-necked, gold-haired, Madonna-eyed. I love her!
If you will quench this passion, take my life!
(He falls at his father's feet. Frederick, in a paroxysm of rage,
seizes his sword.)
SCHNETZEN. He is your son!
LANDGRAVE. Oh that he ne'er were born!
40 Hola! Halberdiers! Yeomen of the Guard!
(Enter Guardsmen.) Bear off this prisoner! Let him sigh out
His blasphemous folly in the castle tower,
Until his hair be snow, his fingers claws.
(They seize and bear away Prince William.)
130 EMMA LAZARUS
Well, what's your counsel?
SCHNETZEN. Briefly this, my lord.
The Jews of Nordhausen have brewed the Prince 45
A love-elixir—let them perish all!
(Tumult without. Singing of Hymns and Ringing of Church-
bells. The Landgrave and Schnetzen go to the window.)
*Song (without.)
The cruel pestilence arrives,
Cuts off a myriad human lives.
See the flagellants' naked skin!
They scourge themselves for grievous sin. 50
Trembles the earth beneath God's breath,
The Jews shall all be burned to death.
LANDGRAVE. Look, foreign pilgrims! What an endless file!
Naked waist-upward. Blood is trickling down
Their lacerated flesh. What do they carry? 55
SCHNETZEN. Their scourges—iron-pointed, leathern thongs.
Mark how they lash themselves—the strict Flagellants.
The Brothers of the Cross—hark to their cries!
VOICE FROM BELOW. Atone, ye mighty! God is wroth! Expel
The enemies of heaven—raze their homes! 60
(Confused cries from below, which gradually die away in the
distance.)
Woe to God's enemies! Death to the Jews!
They poison all our wells—they bring the plague.
Kill them who killed our Lord! Their homes shall be
A wilderness—drown them in their own blood!
(The Landgrave and Schnetzen withdraw from the window.)
1
 A Rhyme of the Times. See Graetz' History of the Jews, Page 374, Vol. 7. (Lazarus's
note, which refers to the German edition.)
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
131
65 SCHNETZEN. Do not the people ask the same as I?
Is not the people's voice the voice of God?
LANDGRAVE. I will consider.
SCHNETZEN. Not too long, my liege.
The moment favors. Later 'twere hard to show
Due cause to his Imperial Majesty,
70 For slaughtering the vassals of the Crown.
Two mighty friends are theirs. His holiness
Clement the Sixth and Kaiser Karl.
1
LANDGRAVE. 'Twere rash
Contending with such odds.
SCHNETZEN. Courage, my lord.
These battle singly against death and fate.
75 Your allies are the sense and heart o' the world.
Priests warring for their Christ, nobles for gold,
And peoples for the very breath of life
Spoiled by the poison-mixers. Kaiser Karl
Lifts his lone voice unheard, athwart the roar
80 Of such a flood; the papal bull is whirled
An unconsidered rag amidst the eddies.
LANDGRAVE. What credence lend you to the general rumor
Of the river poison?
SCHNETZEN. Such as mine eyes avouch.
I have seen, yea touched the leathern wallet found
85 On the body of one from whom the truth was wrenched
By salutary torture. He confessed,
Though but a famulus of the master-wizard,
The horrible old Moses of Mayence,
2
He had flung such pouches in the Rhine, the Elbe,
90 The Oder, Danube—in a hundred brooks,
Until the wholesome air reeked pestilence;
'Twas an ell long, filled with a dry, fine dust
Of rusty black and red, deftly compounded
1
 Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (1316-78, emperor 1346-78) and Clement VI
(1291-1352, pope 1342-52) each issued decrees attempting to stem the persecution
of Jews. See Graetz, The History of the Jews, 4:103-06.
2
 See Graetz, Popular History of the Jews, 4:42-43.
132 EMMA LAZARUS
Of powdered flesh of basilisks, spiders, frogs,
And lizards, baked with sacramental dough 95
In Christian blood.
LANDGRAVE. Such goblin-tales may curdle
The veins of priest-rid women, fools, and children.
They are not for the ears of sober men.
SCHNETZEN. Pardon me, Sire. I am a simple soldier.
My God, my conscience, and my suzerain, 100
These are my guides—blindfold I follow them.
If your keen royal wit pierce the gross web
Of common superstition—be not wroth
At your poor vassals loyal ignorance.
Remember, too, Siisskind retains your bonds. 105
The old fox will not press you; he would bleed
Against the native instinct of the Jew,
Rather his last gold doit and so possess
Your ease of mind, nag, chafe, and toy with it;
Abide his natural death, and other Jews no
Less devilish-cunning, franklier Hebrew-viced,
Will claim redemption of your pledge.
LANDGRAVE. How know you
That Siisskind holds my bonds?
SCHNETZEN. You think the Jews
Keep such things secret? Not a Jew but knows
Your debt exact—the sum and date of interest, 115
And that you visit Siisskind, not for love,
But for his shekels.
LANDGRAVE. Well, the Jews shall die.
This is the will of God. Whom shall I send
To bear my message to the council?
SCHNETZEN. I
Am ever at your 'hest. To-morrow morn 120
Sees me in Nordhausen.
LANDGRAVE. Come two hours hence.
I will deliver you the letter signed.
Make ready for your ride.
SCHNETZEN. (kisses Frederick's hand.) Farewell, my master.
(aside.) Ah vengeance cometh late, Siisskind von Orb,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
133
125 But yet it comes! My wife was burned through thee,
Thou and thy children are consumed by me!
(Exit.)
SCENE II. A Room in the Wartburg Monastery. Princess
Mathildis and Prior Peppercorn.
PRIOR. Be comforted, my daughter.Your lord's wisdom
Goes hand in hand with his known piety
Thus dealing with your son. To love a Jewess
Is flat contempt of Heaven—to ask in marriage,
5 Sheer spiritual suicide. Let be;
Justice must take its course.
PRINCESS. Justice is murdered;
Oh slander not her corpse. For my son's fault,
A thousand innocents are doomed. Is that
God's justice?
10 PRIOR. Yea, our liege is but His servant.
Did not He purge with fiery hail those twain
Blotches of festering sin, Gomorrah, Sodom?
The Jews are never innocent,—when Christ
Agonized on the Cross, they cried—"His blood
15 Be on our children's heads and ours!" I mark
A dangerous growing evil of these days,
Pity, misnamed—say, criminal indulgence
Of reprobates brow-branded by the Lord.
Shall we excel the Christ in charity?
20 Because His law is love, we tutor him
In mercy and reward his murderers?
Justice is blind and virtue is austere.
If the true passion brimmed our yearning hearts
The vision of the agony would loom
25 Fixed vividly between the day and us;—
Nailed on the gaunt black Cross the divine form,
Wax-white and dripping blood from ankles, wrists,
The sacred ichor that redeems the world,
And crowded in strange shadow of eclipse,
134
EMMA LAZARUS
Reviling Jews, wagging their heads accursed, 30
Sputtering blasphemy—who then would shrink
From holy vengeance? who would offer less
Heroic wrath and filial zeal to God
Than to a murdered father?
PRINCESS. But my son
Will die with her he loves.
PRIOR. Better to perish 35
In time than in eternity. No question
Pends here of individual life; our sight
Must broaden to embrace the scope sublime
Of this trans-earthly theme. The Jew survives
Sword, plague, fire, cataclysm—and must, since Christ 40
Cursed him to live till doomsday, still to be
A scarecrow to the nations. None the less
Are we beholden in Christ's name at whiles,
When maggot-wise Jews breed, infest, infect
Communities of Christians, to wash clean 45
The Church's vesture, shaking off the filth
That gathers round her skirts. A perilous germ!
Know you not, all the wells, the very air
The Jews have poisoned?—Through their arts alone
The Black Death scourges Christendom.
PRINCESS. I know 50
All heinousness imputed by their foes.
Father, mistake me not: I urge no plea
To shield this hell-spawn, loathed by all who love
The lamb and kiss the Cross. I had not guessed
Such obscure creatures crawled upon my path, 55
Had not my son—I know not how misled—
Deigned to ennoble with his great regard,
A sparkle midst the dust motes. She is sacred.
What is her tribe to me? Her kith and kin
May rot or roast—the Jews of Nordhausen 60
May hang, drown, perish like the Jews of France,
But she shall live—Liebhaid von Orb, the Jewess,
The Prince, my son, elects to love.
PRIOR. Amen!
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
135
Washed in baptismal waters she shall be
65 Led like the clean-fleeced yeanling to the fold.
Trust me, my daughter—for through me the Church
Which is the truth, which is the life, doth speak.
Yet first 'twere best essay to cure the Prince
Of his moon-fostered madness, bred, no doubt,
70 By baneful potions which these cunning knaves
Are skilled to mix.
PRINCESS. Go visit him, dear father,
Where in the high tower mewed, a wing-clipped eagle,
His spirit breaks in cage.You are his master,
He is wont from childhood to hear wisdom fall
75 From your instructed lips.Tell him his mother
Rises not from her knees, till he is freed.
PRIOR. Madam, I go. Our holy Church has healed
Far deadlier heart-wounds than a love-sick boy's.
Be of good cheer, the Prince shall live to bless
80 The father's rigor who kept pure of blot
A scutcheon more unsullied than the sun.
PRINCESS. Thanks and farewell.
PRIOR. Farewell. God send thee peace!
(Exeunt.)
SCENE III. A mean apartment in one of the Towers of the
Landgrave's Palace. Prince William discovered seated at
the window.
PRINCE W. The slow sun sets; with lingering, large embrace
He folds the enchanted hill: then like a god
Strides into heaven behind the purple peak.
Oh beautiful! In the clear, rayless air,
5 I see the chequered vale mapped far below,
The sky-paved streams, the velvet pasture slopes,
The grim, gray cloister whose deep vesper bell
Blends at this height with tinkling, homebound herds!
I see—but oh, how far!—the blessed town
10 Where Liebhaid dwells. Oh that I were yon star
136 EMMA LAZARUS
That pricks the West's unbroken foil of gold,
Bright as an eye, only to gaze on her!
How keen it sparkles o'er theVenusburg!
When brown night falls and mists begin to live,
Then will the phantom hunting-train emerge, 15
Hounds straining, black fire-eyeballed, breathless steeds,
Spurred by wild huntsmen, and unhallowed nymphs,
And at their head the foam-begotten witch,
Of soul-destroying beauty. Saints of heaven!
Preserve mine eyes from such unholy sight! 20
How all unlike the base desire which leads
Misguided men to that infernal cave,
Is the pure passion that exalts my soul
Like a religion! Yet Christ pardon me,
If this be sin to thee! 25
(He takes his lute, and begins to sing. Enter with a lamp Steward
of the Castle, followed by Prior Peppercorn. Steward lays down
the lamp and exits.)
Good even, father!
PRIOR. Benedicite!
Our bird makes merry his dull bars with song,
Yet would not penitential psalms accord
More fitly with your sin than minstrels' lays?
PRINCE W. I know no blot upon my life s fair record. 30
PRIOR. What is it to wanton with a Christ-cursed Jewess,
Defy thy father and pollute thy name,
And fling to the ordures thine immortal soul?
PRINCE W. Forbear! thy cowl's a helmet, thy serge frock
Invulnerable as brass—yet I am human, 35
Thou, priest, art still a man.
PRIOR. Pity him, heaven!
To what a pass their draughts have brought the mildest,
Noblest of princes! Softly, my son; be ruled
By me, thy spiritual friend and father.
Thou hast been drugged with sense-deranging potions, 40
Thy blood set boiling and thy brain askew;
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
137
When these thick fumes subside, thou shalt awake
To bless the friend who gave thy madness bounds.
PRINCE W. Madness! Yea, as the sane world goes, I am mad.
45 What else to help the helpless, to uplift
The low, to adore the good, the beautiful,
To live, battle, suffer, die for truth, for love!
But that is wide of the question. Let me hear
What you are charged to impart—my father's will.
50 PRIOR. Heart-cleft by his dear offspring's shame, he prays
Your reason be restored, your wayward sense
Renew its due allegiance. For his son
He, the good parent, weeps—hot drops of gall,
Wrung from a spirit seldom eased by tears.
55 But for his honor pricked, the Landgrave takes
More just and general vengeance.
PRINCE W. In the name of God,
What has he done to her?
PRIOR. Naught, naught,—as yet.
Sweet Prince, be calm; you leap like flax to flame.
You nest within your heart a cockatrice,
60 Pluck it from out your bosom and breathe pure
Of the filthy egg. The Landgrave brooks no more
The abomination that infects his town.
The Jews of Nordhausen are doomed.
PRINCE W. Alack!
Who and how many of that harmless tribe,
65 Those meek and pious men, have been elected
To glut with innocent blood the oppressor's wrath?
PRIOR. Who should go free where equal guilt is shared?
Frederick is just—they perish all at once,
Generous moreover—for in their mode of death
He grants them choice.
70 PRINCE W. My father had not lost
The human semblance when I saw him last.
Nor can he be divorced in this short space
From his shrewd wit. How shall he make provision
For the vast widowed, orphaned host this deed
Burdens the state withal?
138 EMMA LAZARUS
PRIOR. Oh excellent! 75
This is the crown of folly, topping all!
Forgive me, Prince, when I gain breath to point
Your comic blunder, you will laugh with me.
Patience—I'll draw my chin as long as yours.
Well, 'twas my fault—one should be accurate— 80
Jews, said I? when I meant Jews, Jewesses,
And Jewlings! all betwixt the age
Of twenty-four hours, and of five score years.
Of either sex, of every known degree,
All the contaminating vermin purged 85
With one clean, searching blast of wholesome fire.
PRINCE W O Christ, disgraced, insulted! Horrible man,
Remembered be your laugh in lowest hell,
Dragging you to the nether pit! Forgive me;
You are my friend—take me from here—unbolt 90
Those iron doors—I'll crawl upon my knees
Unto my father—I have much to tell him.
For but the freedom of one hour, sweet Prior,
I'll brim the vessels of the Church with gold.
PRIOR. Boy! your bribes touch not, nor your curses shake 95
The minister of Christ. Yet I will bear
Your message to the Landgrave.
PRINCE W Whet your tongue
Keen as the archangel's blade of truth—your voice
Be as God's thunder, and your heart one blaze—
Then can you speak my cause. With me, it needs 100
No plausive gift; the smitten head, stopped throat,
Blind eyes and silent suppliance of sorrow
Persuade beyond all eloquence. Great God!
Here while I rage and beat against my bars,
The infernal fagots may be stacked for her, 105
The hell-spark kindled. Go to him, dear Prior,
Speak to him gently, be not too much moved,
'Neath its rude case you had ever a soft heart,
And he is stirred by mildness more than passion.
Recall to him her round, clear, ardent eyes, no
The shower of sunshine that's her hair, the sheen
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
139
Of the cream-white flesh—shall these things serve as fuel?
Tell him that when she heard once he was wounded,
And how he bled and anguished; at the tale
She wept for pity.
115 PRIOR. If her love be true
She will adore her lover's God, embrace
The faith that marries you in life and death.
This promise with the Landgrave would prevail
More than all sobs and pleadings.
PRINCE W. Save her, save her!
120 If any promise, vow or oath can serve.
Oh trusting, tranquil Siisskind, who estopped
Your ears forewarned, bandaged your visioned eyes,
To woo destruction! Stay! did he not speak
Of amulet or talisman? These horrors
125 Have crowded out my wits.Yea, the gold casket!
What fixed serenity beamed from his brow,
Laying the precious box within my hands!
(He brings from the shelf the casket, and hands it to the Prior.)
Deliver this unto the Prince my father,
Nor lose one vital moment. What it holds,
130 I guess not—but my light heart whispers me
The jewel safety's locked beneath its lid.
PRIOR. First I must foil such devil's tricks as lurk
In its gem-crusted cabinet.
PRINCE W. Away!
Deliverance posts on your return. I feel it.
For your much comfort thanks. Good-night.
135 PRIOR. Good-night.
(Exit.)
END OF SECOND ACT.
140 EMMA LAZARUS
[SCENE I.] A cell in the Wartburg Monastery. Enter Prior
Peppercorn with the casket.
PRIOR. So! Glittering shell where doubtless shines concealed
An orient treasure fit to bribe a king,
Ransom a prince and buy him for a son.
I have baptized thee now before the altar,
Effaced the Jew's contaminating touch, 5
And I am free to claim the Church's tithe
From thy receptacle. (He is about to unlock the casket, when
enters Lay Brother, and he hastily conceals it.}
LAY BROTHER. Peace be thine, father!
PRIOR. Amen! and thine. What's new?
LAY BROTHER. A strange Flagellant
Fresh come to Wartburg craves a word with thee.
PRIOR. Bid him within. (Exit Lay Brother. Prior places the casket
in a Cabinet.) Patience! No hour of the day 10
Brings freedom to the priest.
(Re-enter Lay Brother ushering in Nordmann—and exit.)
Brother, all hail!
Blessed be thou who comest in God's name!
NORDMANN. May the Lord grant thee thine own prayer four-fold!
PRIOR. What is thine errand?
NORDMANN. Look at me, my father.
Long since you called me friend.
(The Prior looks at him attentively, while an expression of
wonder and terror gradually overspreads his face.)
PRIOR. Almighty God! 15
The grave gives up her dead. Thou canst not be—
NORDMANN. Nordmann of Nordmannstein, the Knight of
Treffurt.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 141
ACT III.
PRIOR. He was beheaded years agone.
NORDMANN. His death
Had been decreed, but in his stead a squire
20 Clad in his garb and masked, paid bloody forfeit.
A loyal wretch on whom the Prince wreaked vengeance,
Rather than publish the true bird had flown.
PRIOR. Does Frederick know thou art in Eisenach?
NORDMANN. Who would divine the Knight of Nordmannstein
25 In the Flagellants' weeds? From land to land,
From town to town, we cry, "Death to the Jews!
Hep! hep! Hierosolyma Est Perdital"
1
They die like rats; in Gotha they are burned;
Two of the devil brutes in Chatelard,
2
30 Child-murderers, wizards, breeders of the Plague,
Had the truth squeezed from them with screws and racks,
All with explicit date, place, circumstance,
And written as it fell from dying lips
By scriveners of the law. On their confession
35 The Jews of Savoy were destroyed. To-morrow noon
The holy flames shall dance in Nordhausen.
PRIOR. Your zeal bespeaks you fair. In your deep eyes
A mystic fervor shines; yet your scarred flesh
And shrunken limbs denote exhausted nature,
Collapsing under discipline.
40 NORDMANN. Speak not
Of the degrading body and its pangs.
I am all zeal, all energy, all spirit.
Jesus was wroth at me, at all the world,
For our indulgence of the flesh, our base
45 Compounding with his enemies the Jews.
But at Madonna Mary's intercession,
He charged an angel with this gracious word,
"Whoso will scourge himself for forty days,
And labor towards the clean extermination
1
 Jerusalem is lost (Latin). Shortened to its acronym, "hep," it was a call to massacre
Jews.
2
 Village in western Switzerland.
142 EMMA LAZARUS
Of earths corrupting vermin, shall be saved." 50
Oh, what vast peace this message brought my soul!
I have learned to love the ecstasy of pain.
When the sweat stands upon my flesh, the blood
Throbs in my bursting veins, my twisted muscles
Are cramped with agony, I seem to crawl 55
Anigh his feet who suffered on the Cross.
PRIOR. Oh all transforming Time! Can this be he,
The iron warrior of a decade since,
The gallant youth of earlier years, whose pranks
And reckless buoyancy of temperflashed  h60
Clear sunshine through my gloom?
NORDMANN. I am unchanged
(Save that the spirit of grace has fallen on me).
Urged by one motive through these banished years,
Fed by one hope, awake to realize
One living dream—my long delayed revenge. 65
You saw the day when Henry Schnetzen s castle
Was razed with fire?
PRIOR. I saw it.
NORDMANN. Schnetzen s wife,
Three days a mother, perished.
PRIOR. And his child?
NORDMANN. His child was saved.
PRIOR. By whom?
NORDMANN. By the same Jew
Who had betrayed the Castle.
PRIOR. Siisskind von Orb? 70
NORDMANN. Siisskind von Orb! and Schnetzen s daughter lives
As the Jew's child within the Judengasse.
PRIOR, (eagerly) What proof hast thou of this?
NORDMANN. Proof of these eyes!
I visited von Orb to ask a loan.
There saw I such a maiden as no Jew 75
Was ever blessed withal since Jesus died.
White as a dove, with hair like golden floss,
Eyes like an Alpine lake. The haughty line
Of brow imperial, high bridged nose, fine chin,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
143
8o Seemed like the shadow cast upon the wall,
Where Lady Schnetzen stood.
PRIOR. Why hast thou ne'er
Discovered her to Schnetzen?
NORDMANN. He was my friend.
I shared with him thirst, hunger, sword, and fire.
But he became a courtier. When the Margrave
85 Sent me his second challenge to the field,
His messenger was Schnetzen! 'Mongst his knights,
The apple of his eye was Henry Schnetzen.
He was the hound that hunted me to death.
He stood by Frederick s side when I was led,
90 Bound, to the presence. I denounced him coward,
He smote me on the cheek. Christ! it stings yet.
He hissed—"My liege, let Henry Nordmann hang!
He is no knight, for he receives a blow,
Nor dare avenge it!" My gyved wrists moved not,
95 No nerve twitched in my face, although I felt
Flame leap there from my heart, then flying back,
Leave it cold-bathed with deathly ooze—my soul
In silence took her supreme vow of hate.
PRIOR. Praise be to God that thou hast come to-day.
ioo To-morrow were too late. Hast thou not heard
Frederick sends Schnetzen unto Nordhausen,
With fire and torture for the Jews?
NORDMANN. So! Henry Schnetzen
Shall be the Jews' destroyer? Ah!
PRIOR. One moment.
Mayhap this box which Siisskind sends the Prince
Reveals more wonders. (He brings forth the Casket from the
Cabinet, opens it, and discovers a golden cross and a parchment which
105 he hastily overlooks.} Hark! your word's confirmed.
Blessed be Christ, our Lord! (reads.}
"I Siisskind von Orb of Nordhausen, swear by the unutter-
able Name, that on the day when the Castle of Salza was burned,
I rescued the infant daughter of Henry Schnetzen from the
no flames. I purposed restoring her to her father, but when I returned
144
EMMA LAZARUS
to Nordhausen, I found my own child lying on her bier, and my
wife in fevered frenzy calling for her babe. I sought the leech, who
counselled me to show the Christian child to the bereaved
mother as her own.The pious trick prevailed; the fever broke, the
mother was restored. But never would she part with the child, 115
even when she had learned to whom it belonged, and until she
was gathered with the dead—may peace be with her soul!—she
fostered in our Jewish home the offspring of the Gentile knight.
Then again would I have yielded the girl to her parent, but
Schnetzen was my foe, and I feared the haughty baron would 120
disown the daughter who came from the hands of the Jew. Now
however the maiden's temporal happiness demands that she be
acknowledged by her rightful father. Let him see what I have
written. As a token, behold this golden cross, bound by the Lady
Schnetzen round the infant's neck. May the God of Abraham, 125
Isaac, and Jacob redeem and bless me as I have writ the truth."
PRIOR. I thank the Saints that this has come betimes.
Thou shalt renounce thy hate.Vengeance is mine,
The Lord hath said.
NORDMANN. Oh! all-transforming Time!
Is this meek, saintly-hypocrite, the firm 1
Ambitious, resolute Reinhard Peppercorn,
Terror of Jews and beacon of the Church?
Look, you, I have won the special grace of Christ,
He knows through what fierce anguish! Now he leans
Out of his heaven to whisper in mine ear, 135
And reach me my revenge. He makes my cause
His own—and I shall fail upon these heights,
Sink from the level of a hate sublime,
To puerile pity!
PRIOR. Be advised.You hold
Your enemy's living heart within your hands. 140
This secret is far costlier than you dreamed,
For Frederick's son woos Schnetzen's daughter. See,
A hundred delicate springs your wit may move,
Your puppets are the Landgrave and the Prince,
The Governor of Salza and the Jews. 145
SELECTE D POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
145
30
You may recover station, wealth and honor,
Selling your secret shrewdly; while rash greed
Of clumsy vengeance may but drag you down
In the wild whirl of universal ruin.
150 NORDMANN. Christ teach me whom to trust! I would not spill
One drop from out this brimming glorious cup
For which my parched heart pants. I will consider.
PRIOR. Pardon me now, if I break off our talk.
Let all rest as it stands until the dawn.
155 I have many orisons before the light.
NORDMANN. Good-night, true friend. Devote a prayer to me.
(Aside.) I will outwit you, serpent, though you glide
Athwart the dark, noiseless and swift as fate.
(Exit.)
SCENE II. On the road to Nordhausen. Moonlit, rocky land-
scape. On the right between high, white cliffs a narrow
stream spanned by a wooden bridge. Thick bushes and trees.
Enter Prince William and Page.
Prince W. Is this the place where we shall find fresh steeds?
Would I had not dismounted!
PAGE. Nay, sir; beyond
The Werra bridge the horses wait for us.
These rotten planks would never bear their weight.
5 PRINCE W When I am Landgrave these things shall be cared
for.
This is an ugly spot for travelers
To loiter in. How swift the water runs,
Brawling above our voices. Human cries
Would never reach Liborius' convent
1
 yonder,
10 Perched on the sheer, chalk cliff. I think of peril,
From my excess of joy. My spirit chafes,
She that would breast broad-winged the air, must halt
1
 St. Liborius (d. 390), bishop of Le Mans, France, and patron saint of Paderborn, in
west-central Germany, where his relics were moved in 836.
146 EMMA LAZARUS
On stumbling mortal limbs. Look, thither, boy,
How the black shadows of the tree-boles stripe
The moon-blanched bridge and meadow.
PAGE. Sir, what's that? 15
Yon stir and glitter in the bush?
PRINCE W. The moon,
Pricking the dewdrops, plays fantastic tricks
With objects most familiar. Look again,
And where thou sawst the steel-blue flicker glint,
Thou findst a black, wet leaf.
PAGE. No, no! O God! 20
Your sword, sir! Treason!
(Four armed masked men leap from out the bush, seize, bind,
and overmaster, after a brief but violent resistance, the Prince and
his servant.)
PRINCE W. Who are ye, villains? lying
In murderous ambush for the Prince of Meissen?
If you be knights, speak honorably your names,
And I will combat you in knightly wise.
If ye be robbers, name forthwith your ransom. 25
Let me but speed upon my journey now.
By Christ's blood! I beseech you, let me go!
Ho! treason! murder! help!
(He is dragged off struggling. Exeunt omnes.)
SCENE III. Nordhausen. A room in Siisskind's house. Leibhaid
and Claire.
LIEBHAID. Say on, poor girl, if but to speak these horrors
Revive not too intense a pang.
CLAIRE. Not so.
For all my woes seem here to merge their flood
Into a sea of infinite repose.
Through France our journey led, as I have told, 5
From desolation unto desolation.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITING S
147
Naught stayed my father's course—sword, storm, flame, plague,
Exhaustion of the eighty year old frame,
O'ertaxed beyond endurance. Once, once only,
10 His divine force succumbed. 'Twas at day s close,
And all the air was one discouragement
Of April snow-flakes. I was drenched, cold, sick,
With weariness and hunger light of head,
And on the open road, suddenly turned
15 The whole world like the spinning flakes of snow.
My numb hand slipped from his, and all was blank.
His beard, his breath upon my brow, his tears
Scalding my cheek hugged close against his breast,
And in my ear deep groans awoke me."God!"
20 I heard him cry—"try me not past my strength.
No prophet I, a blind, old dying man!"
Gently I drew his face to mine, and kissed,
Whispering courage—then his spirit broke
Utterly; shattered were his wits, I feared.
25 But past is past; he is at peace, and I
Find shelter from the tempest. Tell me rather
Of your serene life.
LIEBHAID. Happiness is mute.
What record speaks of placid, golden days,
Matched each with each as twins? Till yester-eve
30 My life was simple as a song. At whiles
Dark tales have reached us of our people s wrongs,
Strange, far-off anguish, furrowing with fresh care
My father s brow, draping our home with gloom.
We were still blessed; the Landgrave is his friend—
35 The Prince—my Prince—dear Claire, ask me no more!
My adored enemy, my angel-fiend,
Splitting my heart against my heart! Oh God,
How shall I pray for strength to love him less
Than mine own soul ?
CLAIRE. What mean these contrary words?
These passionate tears?
40 LIEBHAID. Brave girl, who art inured
To difficult privation and rude pain,
148 EMMA LAZARUS
What good shall come forswearing kith and God,
To follow the allurements of the heart?
CLAIRE. Duty wears one face, but a thousand masks.
Thy feet she leads to glittering peaks, while mine 45
She guides midst brambled roadways. Not the first
Art thou of Israel's women, chosen of God,
To rule o'er rulers. I remember me
A verse my father often would repeat
Out of our sacred Talmud: "Every time 50
The sun, moon, stars begin again their course,
They hesitate, trembling and filled with shame,
Blush at the blasphemous worship offered them,
And each time God's voice thunders, crying out,
On with your duty!"
1
(Enter Reuben.)
REUBEN. Sister, we are lost! 55
The streets are thronged with panic-stricken folk.
Wild rumors fill the air. Two of our tribe,
Young Mordecai, as I hear, and old Baruch,
Seized by the mob, were dragged towards Eisenach,
Cruelly used, left to bleed out their lives, 60
In the wayside ditch at night. This morn, betimes,
The iron-hearted Governor of Salza
Rides furious into Nordhausen; his horse,
Spurred past endurance, drops before the gate.
The Council has been called to hear him read 65
The Landgrave's message,—all men say, 'tis death
Unto our race.
LIEBHAID. Where is our father, Reuben?
REUBEN. With Rabbi Jacob. Through the streets they walk,
Striving to quell the terror. Ah, too late!
Had he but heeded the prophetic voice, 70
This warning angel led to us in vain!
LIEBHAID. Brother, be calm. Man your young heart to front
1
 See Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 3:297-98, 6:102-03 1158.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 149
Whatever ills the Lord afflicts us with.
What does Prince William? Hastes he not to aid?
75 REUBEN. None know his whereabouts. Some say he's held
Imprisoned by the Landgrave. Others tell
While he was posting with deliverance
To Nordhausen, in bloody Schnetzen's wake,
He was set upon by ruffians—kidnapped—killed.
80 What do I know—hid till our ruin's wrought.
(Liebhaid swoons.)
CLAIRE. Hush, foolish boy. See how your rude words hurt.
Look up, sweet girl; take comfort.
REUBEN. Pluck up heart:
Dear sister, pardon me; he lives, he lives!
LIEBHAID. God help me! Shall my heart crack for love's loss
85 That meekly bears my people s martyrdom?
He lives—I feel it—to live or die with me.
I love him as my soul—no more of that.
I am all Israel's now—till this cloud pass,
I have no thought, no passion, no desire,
Save for my people.
(Enter Siisskind.)
90 SUSSKIND. Blessed art thou, my child!
This is the darkest hour before the dawn.
Thou art the morning star of Israel.
How dear thou art to me—heart of my heart,
Mine, mine, all mine to-day! the pious thought,
95 The orient spirit mine, the Jewish soul.
The glowing veins that sucked life-nourishment
From Hebrew mother's milk. Look at me, Liebhaid,
Tell me you love me. Pity me, my God!
No fiercer pang than this did Jephthah know.
I
1
 See Judges n .With God's help, Jephthah defeats the Ammonites, but to fulfill his vow
to God, he loses his daughter.
150 EMMA LAZARUS
LIEBHAID. Father, what wild and wandering words are these? 100
Is all hope lost?
SUSSKIND. Nay, God is good to us.
I am so well assured the town is safe,
That I can weep my private loss—of thee.
An ugly dream I had, quits not my sense, 105
That you, made Princess of Thuringia,
Forsook your father, and forswore your race.
Forgive me, Liebhaid, I am calm again,
We must be brave—I who besought my tribe
To bide their fate in Nordhausen, and you no
Whom God elects for a peculiar lot.
With many have I talked; some crouched at home,
Some wringing hands about the public ways.
I gave all comfort. I am very weary.
My children, we had best go in and pray, 115
Solace and safety dwell but in the Lord.
(Exeunt.)
ACT IV.
SCENE I. The City Hall at Nordhausen. Deputies and Burghers
assembling. To the right, at a table near the President s chair,
is seated the Public Scrivener. Enter Dietrich vonTettenborn,
and Henry Schnetzen with an open letter in his hand.
SCHNETZEN. Didst hear the fellow s words who handed it?
I asked from whom it came, he spoke by rote,
"The pepper bites, the corn is ripe for harvest,
I come from Eisenach." 'Tis some tedious jest.
TETTENBORN. Doubtless your shrewd friend Prior Peppercorn 5
Masks here some warning. Ask the scrivener
To help us to its contents.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
I5i
END OF THIRD ACT.
SCHNETZEN. (To the clerk.) Read me these.
SCRIVENER, (reads):
"Beware, Lord Henry Schnetzen, of Siisskind's lying tongue!
10 He will thrust a cuckoo's egg into your nest.
[Signed] ONE WHO KNOWS."
SCHNETZEN. A cuckoo's egg! that riddle puzzles me;
But this I know. Schnetzen is no man s dupe,
Much less a Jew's.
(Schnetzen and von Tettenborn take their seats side by side.)
TETTENBORN. Knights, counsellors and burghers!
15 Sir Henry Schnetzen, Governor of Salza,
Comes on grave mission from His Highness Frederick,
Margrave of Meissen, Landgrave ofThuringia,
Our town's imperial Patron and Protector.
SCHNETZEN. Gentles, I greet you in the Landgrave's name,
20 The honored bearer of his princely script,
Sealed with his signet. Read, good Master Clerk.
(He hands a parchment to the Scrivener, who reads aloud:)
Lord President and Deputies of the town of Nordhausen!
Know that we, Frederick Margrave of Meissen, and Landgrave
ofThuringia, command to be burned all the Jews within our
25 territories as far as our lands extend, on account of the great
crime they have committed against Christendom in throwing
poison into the wells, of the truth of which indictment we have
absolute knowledge. Therefore we admonish you to have the
Jews killed in honor of God, so that Christendom be not enfee-
30 bled by them. Whatever responsibility you incur, we will assume
with our Lord the Emperor, and with all other lords. Know also
that we send to you Henry Schnetzen, our Governor of Salza,
who shall publicly accuse your Jews of the above-mentioned
crime.Therefore we beseech you to help him to do justice upon
35 them, and we will singularly reward your good will.
152 EMMA LAZARUS
Given at Eisenach, the Thursday after St.Walpurgis, under our
secret seal.
1
A COUNSELLOR (Diether von Werther.) Fit silence welcomes
this unheard-of wrong!
So! Ye are men—free, upright, honest men,
Not hired assassins? I half doubted it, 40
Seeing you lend these infamous words your ears.
SCHNETZEN. Consider, gentlemen of Nordhausen,
Ere ye give heed to the rash partisan.
Ye cross the Landgrave—well? he crosses you.
It may be I shall ride to Nordhausen, 45
Not with a harmless script, but with a sword,
And so denounce the town for perjured vow.
What was the Strasburg citizens' reward
Who championed these lost wretches, in the face
Of King and Kaiser—three against the world, 50
Conrad von Winterthur the Burgomaster,
Deputy Gosse Sturm, and Peter Schwarber,
Master mechanic?
2
 These leagued fools essayed
To stand between the people's sacred wrath,
And its doomed object. Well, the Jews, no less, 55
Were rooted from the city neck and crop,
And their three friends degraded from their rank
I' the city council, glad to save their skins.
The Jews are foes to God. Our Holy Father
Thunders his ban from Rome against all such 60
As aid the poisoners.Your oath to God,
And to the Prince enjoins—Death to the Jews.
A BURGHER (Reinhard Rolapp.) Why all this vain debate ?
The Landgrave's brief
Affirms the Jews fling poison in the wells.
Shall we stand by and leave them unmolested, 65
Till they have made our town a wilderness?
1
 This is an authentic document. (Lazarus's note.) See Lazaruss notes at the end of the
play, p. 173.
2
 See Graetz, History of the Jews, 4:106.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 153
I say, Death to the Jews!
A BURGHER (Hugo Schultz.) My lord and brethren,
I have scant gift of speech, ye are all my elders.
Yet hear me for truth's sake, and liberty's.
70 The Landgrave of Thuringia is our patron,
True—and our town's imperial Governor,
But are we not free burghers? Shall we not
Debate and act in freedom? If Lord Schnetzen
Will force our council with the sword—enough!
75 We are not frightened schoolboys crouched beneath
The master's rod, but men who bear the sword
As brave as he. By this grim messenger,
Send back this devilish missive. Say to Frederick
Nordhausen never was enfeoffed to him.
80 Prithee, Lord President, bid Henry Schnetzen
Withdraw awhile, that we may all take counsel,
According to the hour's necessity,
As free men, whom nor fear nor favor swerves.
TETTENBORN. Bold youth, you err.True, Nordhausen is free,
And God be witness, we for fear or favor,
85 Would never shed the blood of innocence.
But here the Prince condemns the Jews to death
For capital crime. Who sees a snake must kill,
Ere it spit fatal venom. I, too, say
Death to the Jews!
90 ALL. Death to the Jews! God wills it!
TETTENBORN. Give me your voices in the urn.
(The votes are taken.) One voice
For mercy, all the rest for death. (To an Usher.) Go thou
To the Jews' quarter; bid Siisskind von Orb,
And Rabbi Jacob hither to the Senate,
95 To hear the Landgrave's and the town's decree. (Exit Usher.)
(To Schnetzen.) What learn you of this evil through the State?
SCHNETZEN. It swells to monstrous bulk. In many towns,
Folk build high ramparts round the wells and springs.
In some they shun the treacherous sparkling brooks,
100 To drink dull rain-water, or melted snow,
In mountain districts. Frederick has been patient,
154 EMMA LAZARUS
And too long clement, duped by fleece-cloaked wolves.
But now his subjects' clamor rouses him
To front the general peril. As I hear, 105
A fiendish and far-reaching plot involves
All Christian thrones and peoples.These vile vermin,
Burrowing underneath society,
Have leagued with Moors in Spain, with heretics
Too plentiful—Christ knows! in every land, no
And planned a subterraneous, sinuous scheme,
To overthrow all Christendom. But see,
Where with audacious brows, and steadfast mien,
They enter, bold as innocence. Now listen,
For we shall hear brave falsehoods.
(Enter Siisskind von Orb and Rabbi Jacob.)
TETTENBORN. Rabbi Jacob, 115
And thou, Siisskind von Orb, bow down, and learn
The Councils pleasure.You the least despised
By true believers, and most reverenced
By your own tribe, we grace with our free leave
To enter, yea, to lift your voices here, 120
Amid these wise and honorable men,
If ye find aught to plead, that mitigates
The just severity of your doom. Our prince,
Frederick the Grave, Patron of Nordhausen,
Ordains that all the Jews within his lands, 125
For the foul crime of poisoning the wells,
Bringing the Black Death upon Christendom,
Shall be consumed with flame.
RABBI JACOB. (Springing forward and clasping his hands.) I' the
Name of God,
Your God and ours, have mercy!
SUSSKIND. Noble lords,
Burghers and artisans of Nordhausen, 130
Wise, honorable, just, God-fearing men,
Shall ye condemn or ever ye have heard?
Sure, one at least owns here the close, kind name
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 155
Of Brother—unto him I turn. At least
135 Some sit among you who have wedded wives,
Bear the dear title and the precious charge
Of husband—unto these I speak. Some here,
Are crowned, it may be, with the sacred name
Of Father—unto these I pray. All, all
140 Are sons—all have been children, all have known
The love of parents—unto these I cry:
Have mercy on us, we are innocent,
Who are brothers, husbands, fathers, sons as ye!
Look you, we have dwelt among you many years,
145 Led thrifty, peaceable, well-ordered lives.
Who can attest, who prove we ever wrought
Or ever did devise the smallest harm,
Far less this fiendish crime against the State?
Rather let those arise who owe the Jews
150 Some debt of unpaid kindness, profuse alms,
The Hebrew leech's serviceable skill,
Who know our patience under injury,
And ye would see, if all stood bravely forth,
A motley host, led by the Landgrave's self,
155 Recruited from all ranks, and in the rear,
The humblest, veriest wretch in Nordhausen.
We know the Black Death is a scourge of God.
Is not our flesh as capable of pain,
Our blood as quick envenomed as your own?
160 Has the Destroying Angel passed the posts
Of Jewish doors—to visit Christian homes?
We all are slaves of one tremendous Hour.
We drink the waters which our enemies say
We spoil with poison,—we must breathe, as ye,
165 The universal air,—we droop, faint, sicken,
From the same causes to the selfsame end.
Ye are not strangers to me, though ye wear
Grim masks to-day—lords, knights and citizens,
Few do I see whose hand has pressed not mine,
170 In cordial greeting. Dietrich von Tettenborn,
If at my death my wealth be confiscate
156 EMMA LAZARUS
Unto the State, bethink you, lest she prove
A harsher creditor than I have been.
Stout Meister Rolapp, may you never again
Languish so nigh to death that Simon's art 175
Be needed to restore your lusty limbs.
Good Hugo Schultz—ah! be those blessed tears
Remembered unto you in Paradise!
Look there, my lords, one of your council weeps,
If you be men, why, then an angel sits 180
On yonder bench.You have good cause to weep,
You who are Christian, and disgraced in that
Whereof you made your boast. I have no tears.
A fiery wrath has scorched their source, a voice
Shrills through my brain—"Not upon us, on them 185
Fall everlasting woe, if this thing be!"
SCHNETZEN. My lords of Nordhausen, shall ye be stunned
With sounding words? Behold the serpent s skin,
Sleek-shining, clear as sunlight; yet his tooth
Holds deadly poison. Even as the Jews 190
Did nail the Lord of heaven on the Cross,
So will they murder all his followers,
When once they have the might. Beware, beware!
SUSSKIND. So you are the accuser, my lord Schnetzen?
Now I confess, before you I am guilty. 195
You are in all this presence, the one man
Whom any Jew hath wronged—and I that Jew.
Oh, my offence is grievous; punish me
With the utmost rigor of the law, for theft
And violence, whom ye deemed an honest man. 200
But leave my tribe unharmed! I yield my hands
Unto your chains, my body to your fires;
Let one life serve for all.
SCHNETZEN. You hear, my lords,
How the prevaricating villain shrinks
From the absolute truth, yet dares not front his Maker 205
With the full damnable lie hot on his lips.
Not thou alone, my private foe, shalt die,
But all thy race. Thee had my vengeance reached,
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Without appeal to Prince or citizen.
210 Silence! my heart is cuirassed as my breast.
Rabbi Jacob. Bear with us, gracious lords! My friend is stunned.
He is an honest man. Even I, as 'twere,
Am stupefied by this surprising news.
Yet, let me think—it seems it is not new,
215 This is an ancient, well-remembered pain.
What, brother, came not one who prophesied
This should betide exactly as it doth?
That was a shrewd old man! Your pardon, lords,
I think you know not just what you would do.
220 You say the Jews shall burn—shall burn you say;
Why, good my lords, the Jews are not a flock
Of gallows-birds, they are a colony
Of kindly, virtuous folk. Come home with me;
I'll show you happy hearths, glad roofs, pure lives.
225 Why, some of them are little quick-eyed boys,
Some, pretty, ungrown maidens—children's children
Of those who called me to the pastorate.
And some are beautiful tall girls, some, youths
Of marvelous promise, some are old and sick,
230 Amongst them there be mothers, infants, brides,
Just like your Christian people, for all the world.
Know ye what burning is? Hath one of you
Scorched ever his soft flesh, or singed his beard,
His hair, his eyebrows—felt the keen, fierce nip
235 Of the pungent flame—and raises not his voice
To stop this holocaust? God! 'tis too horrible!
Wake me, my friends, from this terrific dream.
Siisskind. Courage, my brother. On our firmness hangs
The dignity of Israel. Sir Governor,
240 I have a secret word to speak with you.
Schnetzen. Ye shall enjoy with me the jest.These knaves
Are apt to quick invention as in crime.
Speak out—I have no secrets from my peers.
Siisskind. My lord, what answer would you give your Christ
245 If peradventure, in this general doom
You sacrifice a Christian? Some strayed dove
158 EMMA LAZARUS
Lost from your cote, among our vultures caged?
Beware, for midst our virgins there is one
Owes kinship nor allegiance to our tribe.
For her dear sake be pitiful, my lords, 250
Have mercy on our women! Spare at least
My daughter Liebhaid, she is none of mine!
She is a Christian!
SCHNETZEN. Just as I foretold!
The wretches will forswear the sacred st ties,
Cringing for life. Serpents, ye all shall die. 255
So wills the Landgrave; so the court affirms.
Your daughter shall be first, whose wanton arts
Have brought destruction on a princely house.
SUSSKIND. My lord, be moved.You kill your flesh and blood.
By Adonai I swear, your dying wife 260
Entrusted to these arms her child. 'Twas I
Carried your infant from your burning home.
Lord Schnetzen, will you murder your own child?
SCHNETZEN. Ha, excellent! I was awaiting this.
Thou wilt inoculate our knightly veins 265
With thy corrupted Jewish blood. Thou'lt foist
This adder on my bosom. Henry Schnetzen
Is no weak dupe, whom every lie may start.
Make ready, Jew, for death—and warn thy tribe.
SUSSKIND. (kneeling?) Is there a God in heaven? I who ne'er knelt 270
Until this hour to any man on earth,
Tyrant, before thee I abase myself.
If one red drop of human blood still flow
In thy congealed veins, if thou e'er have known
Touch of affection, the blind natural instinct 275
Of common kindred even beasts partake,
Thou man of frozen stone, thou hollow statue,
Grant me one prayer, that thou wilt look on her.
Then shall the eyes of thy dead wife gaze back
From out the maiden's orbs, then shall a voice 280
Within thine entrails, cry—This is my child.
SCHNETZEN. Enough! I pray you, my lord President,
End this unseemly scene. This wretched Jew
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 159
Would thrust a cuckoo s egg within my nest.
285 I have had timely warning. Send the twain
Back to their people, that the court's decree
Be published unto all.
SUSSKIND. Lord Tettenborn!
Citizens! will you see this nameless crime
Brand the clean earth, blacken the crystal heaven?
290 Why, no man stirs! God! with what thick strange fumes
Hast thou, o' the sudden, brutalized their sense?
Or am I mad? Is this already hell?
Worshipful fiends, I have good store of gold,
Packed in my coffers, or loaned out to—Christians;
295 I give it you as free as night bestows
Her copious dews—my life shall seal the bond,
Have mercy on my race!
TETTENBORN. No more, no more!
Go, bid your tribe make ready for their death
At sunset.
RABBI JACOB. Oh!
SUSSKIND. At set of sun to-day?
300 Why, if you traveled to the nighest town,
Summoned to stand before a mortal Prince,
You would need longer grace to put in order
Household effects, to bid farewell to friends,
And make yourself right worthy. But our way
305 Is long, our journey difficult, our Judge
Of awful majesty. Must we set forth,
Haste-flushed and unprepared? One brief day more,
And all my wealth is yours!
TETTENBORN. We have heard enough.
Begone, and bear our message.
SUSSKIND. Courage, brother,
310 Our fate is sealed. These tigers are athirst.
Return we to our people to proclaim
The gracious sentence of the noble court.
Let us go thank the Lord who made us those
To suffer, not to do, this deed. Be strong.
315 So! lean on me—we have little time to lose.
160 EMMA LAZARUS
(Exeunt.)
END OF ACT FOURTH.
ACT V.
SCENE I. A Room in Siisskind's House. Liebhaid, Claire, Reuben.
LIEBHAID. The air hangs sultry as in mid-July.
Look forth, Claire; moves not some big thunder-cloud
Athwart the sky? My heart is sick.
CLAIRE. Nay, Liebhaid.
The clear May sun is shining, and the air
Blows fresh and cordial from the budding hills. 5
LIEBHAID. Reuben, what is 't o'clock. Our father stays.
The midday meal was cold an hour agone.
REUBEN. 'Tis two full hours past noon; he should be here.
Ah see, he comes. Great God! what woe has chanced?
He totters on his staff; he has grown old 10
Since he went forth this morn.
(Enter Siisskind.)
LIEBHAID. Father, what news?
SUSSKIND. The Lord have mercy! Vain is the help of man.
Children, is all in order? We must start
At set of sun on a long pilgrimage. 15
So wills the Landgrave, so the court decrees.
LIEBHAID. What is it, father? Exile?
SUSSKIND. Yea, just that.
We are banished from our vexed, uncertain homes,
'Midst foes and strangers, to a land of peace,
Where joy abides, where only comfort is.
Banished from care, fear, trouble, life—to death. 20
REUBEN. Oh horror! horror! Father, I will not die.
Come, let us flee—we yet have time for flight.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 161
I'll bribe the sentinel—he will ope the gates.
Liebhaid, Claire, Father! let us flee! Away
25 To some safe land where we may nurse revenge.
SUSSKIND. Courage, my son, and peace. We may not flee.
Didst thou not see the spies who dogged my steps?
The gates are thronged with citizens and guards.
We must not flee—God wills that we should die.
LIEBHAID. Said you at sunset?
30 SUSSKIND. So they have decreed.
CLAIRE. Oh why not now? Why spare the time to warn?
Why came they not with thee to massacre,
Leaving no agony betwixt the sentence
And instant execution? That were mercy!
Oh, my prophetic father!
35 SUSSKIND. They allow
Full five hours' grace to shrive our souls with prayer.
We shall assemble in the Synagogue,
As on Atonement Day, confess our sins,
Recite the Kaddish for the Dead, and chant
40 Our Shibboleth, the Unity of God,
Until the supreme hour when we shall stand
Before the mercy-seat.
LIEBHAID. In what dread shape
Approaches death?
SUSSKIND. Nerve your young hearts, my children.
We shall go down as God's three servants went
45 Into the fiery furnace.
1
 Not again
Shall the flames spare the true-believers' flesh.
The anguish shall be fierce and strong, yet brief.
Our spirits shall not know the touch of pain,
Pure as refined gold they shall issue safe
50 From the hot crucible; a pleasing sight
Unto the Lord. Oh, 'tis a rosy bed
Where we shall couch, compared with that whereon
They lie who kindle this accursed blaze.
Ye shrink? ye would avert your martyred brows
1
 See Daniel 3.
162 EMMA LAZARUS
From the immortal crowns the angels offer?
What! are we Jews and are afraid of death? 55
God s chosen people, shall we stand a-tremble
Before our Father, as the Gentiles use?
REUBEN. Shall the smoke choke us, father? or the flame
Consume our flesh?
SUSSKIND. I know not, boy. Be sure 60
The Lord will temper the shrewd pain for those
Who trust in Him.
REUBEN. May I stand by thy side,
And hold my hand in thine until the end?
SUSSKIND. (aside.) What solace hast thou, God, in all thy heavens
For such an hour as this? Yea, hand in hand 65
We walk, my son, through fire, to meet the Lord.
Yet there is one among us shall not burn.
A secret shaft long rankling in my heart,
Now I withdraw, and die. Our general doom,
Liebhaid, is not for thee.Thou art no Jewess. 70
Thy father is the man who wills our death;
Lord Henry Schnetzen.
LIEBHAID. Look at me! your eyes
Are sane, correcting your distracted words.
This is Love's trick, to rescue me from death.
My love is firm as thine, and dies with thee. 75
CLAIRE. Oh, Liebhaid, live. Hast thou forgot the Prince?
Think of the happy summer blooms for thee
When we are in our graves.
LIEBHAID. And I shall smile,
Live and rejoice in love, when ye are dead?
SUSSKIND. My child, my child! By the Ineffable Name, 80
The Adonai, I swear, thou must believe,
Albeit thy father scoffed, gave me the lie.
Go kneel to him—for if he see thy face,
Or hear thy voice, he shall not doubt, but save.
LIEBHAID. Never! If I be offspring to that kite, 85
I here deny my race, forsake my father,—
So does thy dream fall true. Let him save thee,
Whose hand has guided mine, whose lips have blessed,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 163
Whose bread has nourished me. Thy God is mine,
Thy people are my people.
90 VOICES, (without.) Siisskind von Orb!
SUSSKIND. I come, my friends.
(Enter boisterously certain Jews.)
IST JEW. Come to the house of God!
2D JEW. Wilt thou desert us for whose sake we perish?
3D JEW. The awful hour draws nigh. Come forth with us
Unto the Synagogue.
SUSSKIND. Bear with me, neighbors.
95 Here we may weep, here for the last time know
The luxury of sorrow, the soft touch
Of natural tenderness; here our hearts may break;
Yonder no tears, no faltering! Eyes serene
Lifted to heaven, and defiant brows
ioo To those who have usurped the name of men,
Must prove our faith and valor limitless
As is their cruelty. One more embrace,
My daughter, thrice my daughter! Thine affection
Outshines the hellish flames of hate; farewell,
105 But for a while; beyond the river of fire
I'll fold thee in mine arms, immortal angel!
For thee, poor orphan, soon to greet again
The blessed brows of parents, I dreamed not
The grave was all the home I had to give,
no Go thou with Liebhaid, and array yourselves
As for a bridal. Come, little son, with me.
Friends, I am ready. Oh my God, my God,
Forsake us not in our extremity!
(Exeunt Siisskind and Jews.)
SCENE II. A Street in the Judengasse. Several Jews pass across the
stage, running and with gestures of distress.
JEWS. Woe, woe! the curse has fallen! (Exeunt.)
164 EMMA LAZARUS
(Enter other Jews.)
IST JEW. We are doomed.
The fury of the Lord has smitten us.
Oh that mine head were waters and mine eyes
Fountains of tears!
1
 God has forsaken us.
(They knock at the doors of the houses.)
2ND JEW. What, Benjamin! Open the door to death! 5
We all shall die at sunset! Menachem!
Come forth! Come forth! Manasseh! Daniel! Ezra!
(Jews appear at the windows.)
ONE CALLING FROM ABOVE. Neighbors, what wild alarm is this?
i ST JEW. Descend!
Descend! Come with us to the house of prayer.
Save himself whoso can! we all shall burn. 10
(Men and women appear at the doors of the houses.)
ONE OF THE MEN AT THE DOOR.Beseech you brethren, calmly.
Tell us all!
Mine aged father lies at point of death
Gasping within.Ye'll thrust him in his grave
With boisterous clamor.
i ST JEW. Blessed is the man 15
Whom the Lord calls unto Himself in peace!
Siisskind von Orb and Rabbi Jacob come
From the tribunal where the vote is—Death
To all our race.
SEVERAL VOICES. Woe! woe! God pity us!
IST JEW. Hie ye within, and take a last farewell
Of home, love, life—put on your festal robes. 20
So wills the Rabbi, and come forth at once
1
 Jeremiah ix.i. (Lazarus's note.)
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 165
To pray till sunset in the Synagogue.
AN OLD MAN. Oh God! Is this the portion of mine age?
Were my white hairs, my old bones spared for this?
Oh cruel, cruel!
25 AYouNG GIRL. I am too young to die.
Save me, my father! To-morrow should have been
The feast at Rachel's house. I longed for that,
Counted the days, dreaded some trivial chance
Might cross my pleasure—Lo, this horror comes!
30 A BRIDE. Oh love! oh thou just-tasted cup of joy
Snatched from my lips! Shall we twain lie with death,
Dark, silent, cold—whose every sense was tuned
To happiness! Life was too beautiful—
That was the dream—how soon we are awake!
35 Ah, we have that within our hearts defies
Their fiercest flames. No end, no end, no end!
JEW. *God with a mighty hand, a stretched-out arm,
And poured-out fury, ruleth over us.
The sword is furbished, sharp i' the slayer s hand.
40 Cry out and howl thou son of Israel!
Thou shalt be fuel to the fire; thy blood
Shall overflow the land, and thou no more
Shalt be remembered—so the Lord hath spoken.
(Exeunt omnes.)
SCENE III. Within the Synagogue. Above in the Gallery, women
sumptuously attired; some with children by the hand or
infants in their arms. Below the men and boys with silken
scarfs about their shoulders.
RABBI JACOB.
 2
The Lord is nigh unto the broken heart.
Out of the depths we cry to thee, oh God!
Show us the path of everlasting life;
For in thy presence is the plenitude
1
 Ezekiel xx.33; xxi. 11-32. (Lazarus's note.)
2
 Service for Day of Atonement. (Lazarus's note.)
166 EMMA LAZARUS
Of joy, and in thy right hand endless bliss. 5
(Enter Siisskind, Reuben, etc.)
SEVERAL VOICES. Woe unto us who perish!
A JEW. Siisskind von Orb,
Thou hast brought down this doom. Would we had heard
The prophet s voice!
SUSSKIND. Brethren, my cup is full!
Oh let us die as warriors of the Lord.
The Lord is great in Zion. Let our death 10
Bring no reproach to Jacob, no rebuke
To Israel. Hark ye! let us crave one boon
At our assassins' hands; beseech them build
Within God s acre where our fathers sleep,
A dancing-floor to hide the fagots stacked. 15
Then let the minstrels strike the harp and lute,
And we will dance and sing above the pile,
Fearless of death, until the flames engulf,
Even as David danced before the Lord,
As Miriam danced and sang beside the sea.* 20
Great is our Lord! His name is glorious
In Judah, and extolled in Israel!
In Salem is his tent, his dwelling place
In Zion; let us chant the praise of God!
A JEW. Siisskind, thou speakest well! We will meet death 25
With dance and song. Embrace him as a bride.
So that the Lord receive us in His tent.
SEVERAL VOICES. Amen! amen! amen! we dance to death!
RABBI JACOB. Siisskind, go forth and beg this grace of them.
(Exit Siisskind.)
Punish us not in wrath, chastise us not 30
In anger, oh our God! Our sins o'erwhelm
Our smitten heads, they are a grievous load;
1
 See 2 Samuel 6.14; Exodus 15.20.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS I6
7
We look on our iniquities, we tremble,
Knowing our trespasses. Forsake us not.
35 Be thou not far from us. Haste to our aid,
Oh God, who art our Saviour and our Rock!
(Re-enter Siisskind.)
SUSSKIND. Brethren, our prayer, being the last, is granted.
The hour approaches. Let our thoughts ascend
From mortal anguish, to the ecstasy
40 Of martyrdom, the blessed death of those
Who perish in the Lord. I see, I see
How Israels ever-crescent glory makes
These flames that would eclipse it, dark as blots
Of candlelight against the blazing sun.
45 We die a thousand deaths,—drown, bleed, and burn;
Our ashes are dispersed unto the winds.
Yet the wild winds cherish the sacred seed,
The waters guard it in their crystal heart,
The fire refuseth to consume. It springs,
50 A tree immortal, shadowing many lands,
Unvisited, unnamed, undreamed as yet.
Rather a vine, full-flowered, golden-branched,
Ambrosial-fruited, creeping on the earth,
Trod by the passer s foot, yet chosen to deck
55 Tables of princes. Israel now has fallen
Into the depths, he shall be great in time.*
Even as we die in honor, from our death
Shall bloom a myriad heroic lives,
Brave through our bright example, virtuous
60 Lest our great memory fall in disrepute.
Is one among us, brothers, would exchange
His doom against our tyrants,—lot for lot?
1
 The vine creeps on the earth, trodden by the passer's foot, but its fruit goes upon the
table of princes. Israel now has fallen in the depths, but he shall be great in the fulness
of time.—TALMUD. (Lazarus's note.) This passage is from the Midrash, Vayikra Rabbah
36:2.
EMMA LAZARUS 168
Let him go forth and live—he is no Jew.
Is one who would not die in Israel
Rather than live in Christ,—their Christ who smiles 65
On such a deed as this? Let him go forth—
He may die full of years upon his bed.
Ye who nurse rancor haply in your hearts,
Fear ye we perish unavenged? Not so!
To-day, no! nor to-morrow! but in God's time, 70
Our witnesses arise. Ours is the truth,
Ours is the power, the gift of Heaven. We hold
His Law, His lamp, His covenant, His pledge.
Wherever in the ages shall arise
Jew-priest, Jew-poet, Jew-singer, or Jew-saint— 75
And everywhere I see them star the gloom—
In each of these the martyrs are avenged!
RABBI JACOB. Bring from the ark, the bell-fringed, silken-bound
Scrolls of the Law. Gather the silver vessels,
Dismantle the rich curtains of the doors, 80
Bring the perpetual lamp;
1
 all these shall burn,
For Israels light is darkened, Israel's Law
Profaned by strangers. Thus the Lord hath said:
2
"The weapon formed against thee shall not prosper,
The tongue that shall contend with thee in judgment, 85
Thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage
Of the Lord's servants and their righteousness.
For thou shalt come to peoples yet unborn,
Declaring that which He hath done. Amen!"
(The doors of the Synagogue are burst open with tumultuous
noise. Citizens and officers rush in.)
CITIZENS. Come forth! the sun sets. Come, the Council waits! 90
What! will ye teach your betters patience? Out!
The Governor is ready. Forth with you,
Curs! serpents! Judases! The bonfire burns!
1
 See note 3,p. 49.
2
 Conclusion of service Day of Atonement. (Lazarus's note.)
SELECTE D POEMS AND OTHER WRITING S 169
(Exeunt.)
SCENE IV. A Public Place. Crowds of citizens assembled. On a
platform are seated Dietrich von Tettenborn and Henry
Schnetzen with other members of the Council.
IST CITIZEN. Here's such a throng! Neighbor, your elbow makes
An ill prod for my ribs.
20 CITIZEN. I am pushed and squeezed.
My limbs are not mine own.
30 CITIZEN. Look this way, wife.
They will come hence,—a pack of just-whipped curs.
5 I warrant you the stiff-necked brutes repent
To-day if ne'er before.
WIFE. I am all a-quiver.
I have seen monstrous sights,—an uncaged wolf,
The corpse of one sucked by a vampyre,
The widow Kupfen's malformed child—but never
Until this hour, a Jew.
10 3D CITIZEN. D' ye call me Jew?
Where do you spy one now?
Wife. You'll have your jest
Now or anon, what matters it?
4TH CITIZEN. Well, I
Have seen a Jew, and seen one burn at that;
Hard by in Wartburg; he had killed a child.
15 Zounds! how the serpent wriggled! I smell now
The roasting, stinking flesh!
BOY. Father, be these
The folk who murdered Jesus?
4TH CITIZEN. Ay, my boy.
Remember that, and when you hear them come,
I'll lift you on my shoulders.You can fling
Your pebbles with the rest.
(Trumpets sound.)
20 CITIZENS. The Jews! the Jews!
EMMA LAZARUS 170
BOY. Quick, father! lift me! I see nothing here
But hose and skirts.
(Music of a march approaching.)
CITIZENS. What mummery is this?
The sorcerers brew new mischief.
ANOTHER CITIZEN. Why, they come
Pranked for a holiday; not veiled for death.
ANOTHER CITIZEN. Insolent braggarts! They defy the Christ! 25
(Enter in procession to music the Jews. First, Rabbi Jacob—after
him, sick people, carried on litters—then old men and women,
followed promiscuously by men, women and children of all ages.
Some of the men carry gold and silver vessels, some the Rolls of
the Law. One bears the Perpetual Lamp, another the seven-
branched silver candle-stick of the Synagogue. The mothers have
their children by the hand or in their arms. All richly attired.)
CITIZENS. The misers! they will take their gems and gold
Down to the grave!
CITIZEN'S WIFE. So these be Jews! Christ save us!
To think the devils look like human folk!
CITIZENS. Cursed be the poison-mixers! Let them burn!
CITIZENS. Burn! burn!
(Enter Siisskind von Orb, Liebhaid, Reuben and Claire.)
SCHNETZEN. Good God! what maid is that? 30
TETTENBORN. Liebhaid von Orb.
SCHNETZEN. The devil's trick!
He has bewitched mine eyes.
SUSSKIND. (as he passes the platform.) Woe to the father
Who murders his own child!
SCHNETZEN. I am avenged,
Siisskind von Orb! Blood for blood, fire for fire,
And death for death! 35
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 171
(Exeunt Siisskind, Liebhaid, etc.)
(Enter Jewish youths and maidens.)
YOUTHS. (in chorus.) Let us rejoice, for it is promised us
That we shall enter in God's tabernacle!
MAIDENS. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Zion,
Within thy portals, O Jerusalem!
(Exeunt.)
40 CITIZEN'S WIFE. I can see naught from here. Let's follow, Hans.
CITIZEN. Be satisfied. There is no inch of space
For foot to rest on yonder. Look! look there!
How the flames rise!
BOY. Oh father, I can see!
They all are dancing in the crimson blaze.
45 Look how their garments wave, their jewels shine,
When the smoke parts a bit. The tall flames dart.
Is not the fire real fire? They fear it not.
VOICES WITHOUT. Arise, oh house of Jacob. Let us walk
Within the light of the Almighty Lord!
(Enter in furious haste Prince William and Nordmann.)
50 PRINCE W. Respite! You kill your daughter, Henry Schnetzen!
NORDMANN. Liebhaid von Orb is your own flesh and blood.
Schnetzen. Spectre! do dead men rise?
Nordmann. Yea, for revenge!
I swear, Lord Schnetzen, by my knightly honor,
She who is dancing yonder to her death,
Is thy wife's child!
(Schnetzen and Prince William make a rush forward towards the
flames. Music ceases; a sound of crashing boards is heard and a
great cry—Hallelujah!)
PRINCE WAND SCHNETZEN. Too late! too late!
55 CITIZENS. All's done!
EMMA LAZARUS 172
PRINCE W. The fire! the fire! Liebhaid, I come to thee.
(He is about to spring forward, but is held back by guards.)
SCHNETZEN. Oh cruel Christ! Is there no bolt in heaven
For the child murderer? Kill me, my friends! my breast
Is bare to all your swords.
(He tears open his jerkin and falls unconscious.)
(Curtain falls.)
THE END.
The plot and incidents of this Tragedy are taken from a little
narrative entitled "DerTanz zumTode; ein Nachtstlick aus dem
vierzehntenYahrhundert," (The Dance to Death—a Night-
piece of the fourteenth century,). By Richard Reinhard.
Compiled from authentic documents communicated by Professor
Franz Delitzsch.
1
The original narrative thus disposes, in conclusion, of the
principal characters:—
"The Knight Henry Schnetzen ended his curse-stricken life
in a cloister of the strictest order.
"Herr Nordmann was placed in close confinement, and
during the same year his head fell under the sword of the
executioner.
"Prince William returned, broken down with sorrow, to
Eisenach. His princely fathers heart found no comfort during
the remainder of his days. He died soon after the murder of the
Jews—his last words were,'woe! the fire !'
"William reached an advanced age, but his life was joyless. He
never married, and at his death Meissen was inherited by his
nephew.
"The Jewish cemetery in Nordhausen, the scene of this
Richard Reinhard, DerTanz zum Tode (Leipzig, 1877).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
173
martyrdom, lay for a long time waste. Nobody would build upon
it. Now it is a bleaching meadow, and where once the flames
sprang up, to-day rests peaceful sunshine."
1
1
 Lazarus authored these notes. Though not happy with their position at the end of
the play, she left no indication of a preferred placement. See Lazarus, to Philip Cowen,
[3 Sept. 1882], in Schappes, 384.
EMMA LAZARUS
174
SONGS
The New Year.
Rosh-Hashanah, 5643.*
Not while the snow-shroud round dead earth is rolled,
And naked branches point to frozen skies.—
When orchards burn their lamps of fiery gold,
The grape glows like a jewel, and the corn
A sea of beauty and abundance lies, 5
Then the new year is born.
Look where the mother of the months uplifts
In the green clearness of the unsunned West,
Her ivory horn of plenty, dropping gifts,
Cool, harvest-feeding dews, fine-winnowed light; 10
Tired labor with fruition, joy and rest
Profusely to requite.
Blow, Israel, the sacred cornet! Call
Back to thy courts whatever faint heart throb
With thine ancestral blood, thy need craves all. 15
The red, dark year is dead, the year just born
Leads on from anguish wrought by priest and mob,
To what undreamed-of morn?
For never yet, since on the holy height,
The Temples marble walls of white and green 20
Carved like the sea-waves, fell, and the world s light
Went out in darkness,—never was the year
Greater with portent and with promise seen,
Than this eve now and here.
Jewish New Year, 1882 CE. In the Jewish calendar, the New Year begins in the
autumn.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
175
I
25 Even as the Prophet promised, so your tent
Hath been enlarged unto earth's farthest rim.
To snow-capped Sierras from vast steppes ye went,
Through fire and blood and tempest-tossing wave,
For freedom to proclaim and worship Him,
30 Mighty to slay and save.
High above flood and fire ye held the scroll,
Out of the depths ye published still the Word.
No bodily pang had power to swerve your soul:
Ye, in a cynic age of crumbling faiths,
35 Lived to bear witness to the living Lord,
Or died a thousand deaths.
In two divided streams the exiles part,
One rolling homeward to its ancient source,
One rushing sunward with fresh will, new heart.
40 By each the truth is spread, the law unfurled,
Each separate soul contains the nation s force,
And both embrace the world.
Kindle the silver candle's seven rays,
Offer the firstfruits of the clustered bowers,
45 The garnered spoil of bees. With prayer and praise
Rejoice that once more tried, once more we prove
How strength of supreme suffering still is ours
For Truth and Law and Love.
The Crowing of the Red Cock.
1
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.
The title is a Russian euphemism for the burning of Jewish towns. See "The
Persecution of the Jews in Russia," The Times, in Appendix D.
EMMA LAZARUS 176
I
A million burning rooftrees light 5
The wo rid-wide path of Israel's flight.
Where is the Hebrew's fatherland?
The folk of Christ is sore bested;
The Son of Man is bruised and banned,
Nor finds whereon to lay his head. 10
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, 15
The tyranny of kings, combined
To root his seed from earth again,
His record is one cry of pain.
When the long roll of Christian guilt
Against his sires and kin is known, 20
The flood of tears, the life-blood spilt
The agony of ages shown,
What oceans can the stain remove,
From Christian law and Christian love?
Nay, close the book; not now, not here, 25
The hideous tale of sin narrate,
Reechoing in the martyr's ear,
Even he might nurse revengeful hate,
Even he might turn in wrath sublime,
With blood for blood and crime for crime. 30
Coward? Not he, who faces death,
Who singly against worlds has fought,
For what? A name he may not breathe,
For liberty of prayer and thought.
The angry sword he will not whet, 35
His nobler task is—to forget.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 177
"Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We
live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a
seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs."—Extract from a
letter of a Russian refugee in Texas.
1
Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass,
Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off.
The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass
Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough.
5 Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass
With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough
Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth,
The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth.
After the Southern day of heavy toil,
10 How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare
To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil
Up from one's pipe-stem through the rayless air.
So deem these unused tillers of the soil,
Who stretched beneath the shadowing oak tree, stare
15 Peacefully on the star-unfolding skies,
And name their life unbroken paradise.
The hounded stag that has escaped the pack,
And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell;
The unimprisoned bird that finds the track
20 Through sun-bathed space, to where his fellows dwell;
The martyr, granted respite from the rack,
The death-doomed victim pardoned from his cell,—
Such only know the joy these exiles gain,—
Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain.
25 Strange faces theirs, wherethrough the Orient sun
Gleams from the eyes and glows athwart the skin.
1
 See "Local News," The Jewish Messenger (28 Apr. 1882): 2.
In Exile.
EMMA LAZARUS I
7
8
Grave lines of studious thought and purpose run
From curl-crowned forehead to dark-bearded chin.
And over all the seal is stamped thereon
Of anguish branded by a world of sin, 30
In fire and blood through ages on their name,
Their seal of glory and the Gentiles' shame.
Freedom to love the law that Moses brought,
To sing the songs of David, and to think
The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught,
1
 35
Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink
The universal air—for this they sought
Refuge o'er wave and continent, to link
Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain,
And truth's perpetual lamp forbid to wane.
2
 40
Hark! through the quiet evening air, their song
Floats forth with wild sweet rhythm and glad refrain.
They sing the conquest of the spirit strong,
The soul that wrests the victory from pain;
The noble joys of manhood that belong 45
To comrades and to brothers. In their strain
Rustle of palms and Eastern streams one hears,
And the broad prairie melts in mist of tears.
In Memoriam—Rev. J. J. Lyons.
Rosh-Hashanah, 5638.
3
The golden harvest-tide is here, the corn
Bows its proud tops beneath the reaper's hand.
Ripe orchards' plenteous yields enrich the land;
Bring the first fruits and offer them this morn,
With the stored sweetness of all summer hours, 5
1
 Jewish philosophers. For more on Gabirol, see note 2, p. 198.
2
 See note 3,p. 49.
3 Jacques Judah Lyons died in 1877 CE. He was Lazarus's uncle and the cantor for the
synagogue her family attended.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 179
The amber honey sucked from myriad flowers,
And sacrifice your best, first fruits to-day,
With fainting hearts and hands forespent with toil,
Offer the mellow harvest's splendid spoil,
10 To Him who gives and Him who takes away.
Bring timbrels, bring the harp of sweet accord,
And in a pleasant psalm your voice attune,
And blow the cornet greeting the new moon.
Sing, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord,
15 Who killeth and who quickeneth again,
Who woundeth, and who healeth mortal pain,
Whose hand afflicts us, and who sends us peace.
Hail thou slim arc of promise in the West,
Thou pledge of certain plenty, peace, and rest.
20 With the spent year, may the year's sorrows cease.
For there is mourning now in Israel,
The crown, the garland of the branching tree
Is plucked and withered. Ripe of years was he.
The priest, the good old man who wrought so well
25 Upon his chosen glebe. For he was one
Who at his seed-plot toiled through rain and sun.
Morn found him not as one who slumbereth,
Noon saw him faithful, and the restful night
Stole o'er him at his labors to requite
30 The just man s service with the just man's death.
What shall be said when such as he do pass?
Go to the hill-side, neath the cypress-trees,
Fall midst that peopled silence on your knees,
And weep that man must wither as the grass.
35 But mourn him not, whose blameless life complete
Rounded its perfect orb, whose sleep is sweet,
Whom we must follow, but may not recall.
Salute with solemn trumpets the New Year,
And offer honeyed fruits as were he here,
40 Though ye be sick with wormwood and with gall.
EMMA LAZARUS 180
The Valley of Baca.
Psalm LXXXIV.
1
A brackish lake is there with bitter pools
Anigh its margin, brushed by heavy trees.
A piping wind the narrow valley cools,
Fretting the willows and the cypresses.
Gray skies above, and in the gloomy space 5
An awful presence hath its dwelling-place.
I saw a youth pass down that vale of tears;
His head was circled with a crown of thorn,
His form was bowed as by the weight of years,
His wayworn feet by stones were cut and torn. 10
His eyes were such as have beheld the sword
Of terror of the angel of the Lord.
He passed, and clouds and shadows and thick haze
Fell and encompassed him. I might not see
What hand upheld him in those dismal ways, 15
Wherethrough he staggered with his misery.
The creeping mists that trooped and spread around,
The smitten head and writhing form enwound.
Then slow and gradual but sure they rose,
Those clinging vapors blotting out the sky. 20
The youth had fallen not, his viewless foes
Discomfited, had left the victory
Unto the heart that fainted not nor failed,
But from the hill tops its salvation hailed.
I looked at him in dread lest I should see, 25
The anguish of the struggle in his eyes;
And lo, great peace was there! Triumphantly
The sunshine crowned him from the sacred skies.
1
 The Valley of Baca (or "the valley of weeping") is a figure for sorrow transformed to
j°y-
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 181
"From strength to strength he goes,"
1
 he leaves beneath
30 The valley of the shadow and of death.
"Thrice blest who passing through that vale of Tears,
Makes it a well,"
2
—and draws life-nourishment
From those death-bitter drops. No grief, no fears
Assail him further, he may scorn the event.
35 For naught hath power to swerve the steadfast soul
Within that valley broken and made whole.
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:
5 The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.
3
From Mizpeh s mountain-ridge they saw
Jerusalem's empty streets, her shrine
Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law,
10 With idol and with pagan sign.
Mourners in tattered black were there,
With ashes sprinkled on their hair.
1
 Psalm 84.8.
2
 Psalm 84.7.
3 The sons of Mattathias—-Jonathan, John, Eleazar, Simon (also called the Jewel), and
Judas, the Prince. (Lazarus's note.) The Maccabees led the Jewish resistance against the
rule of Antiochus IV and his attempts to Hellenize the Jewish people and abolish their
religious practices. When he invaded Jerusalem in 168 BCE, Antiochus defiled the
Temple and later dedicated it to the Greek god Zeus. A rebellion began when an
elderly priest, Mattathias, killed one of the king's officers and an apostate Jew prepar-
ing sacrifice to the new gods. Mattathias and his five sons took refuge in the hills and
from there attracted thousands of followers. The Maccabees s resistance movement led
to the rededication of the Temple in 164 BCE, an event that is celebrated each year at
Hanukkah (Hebrew for "dedication"). Mizpeh or Mizpah is an elevated site near
Jerusalem where the Maccabean-led army gathers. See i Maccabees 1-4.
EMMA LAZARUS 182
Then from the stony peak there rang
A blast to ope the graves: down poured
The Maccabean clan, who sang 15
Their battle-anthem to the Lord.
Five heroes lead, and following, see,
Ten thousand rush to victory!
Oh for Jerusalem's trumpet now,
To blow a blast of shattering power, 20
To wake the sleepers high and low,
And rouse them to the urgent hour!
No hand for vengeance—but to save,
A million naked swords should wave.
Oh deem not dead that martial fire, 25
Say not the mystic flame is spent!
With Moses' law and David's lyre,
Your ancient strength remains unbent.
Let but an Ezra rise anew,
To lift the Banner of the Jew! 30
A rag, a mock at first—erelong,
When men have bled and women wept,
To guard its precious folds from wrong,
Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,
Shall leap to bless it, and to save. 35
Strike! for the brave revere the brave!
The Guardian of the Red Disk.
Spoken by a Citizen of Malta—1300.
z
A curious title held in high repute,
One among many honors, thickly strewn
On my lord Bishop's head, his grace of Malta.
In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council declared that Jews living in Christian countries
should wear identifying badges to distinguish them from Christians. See Graetz,
Popular History of the Jews 3:304-309.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 183
25
I h
Nobly he bears them all,—with tact, skill, zeal,
5 Fulfills each special office, vast or slight,
Nor slurs the least minutia,—therewithal
Wears such a stately aspect of command,
Broad-checked, broad-chested, reverend, sanctified,
Haloed with white about the tonsure's rim,
10 With dropped lids o'er the piercing Spanish eyes
(Lynx-keen, I warrant, to spy out heresy);
Tall, massive form, o'ertowering all in presence,
Or ere they kneel to kiss the large white hand.
His looks sustain his deeds,—the perfect prelate,
15 Whose void chair shall be taken, but not filled.
You know not, who are foreign to the isle,
Haply, what this Red Disk may be, he guards.
'Tis the bright blotch, big as the Royal seal,
Branded beneath the beard of every Jew.
20 These vermin so infest the isle, so slide
Into all byways, highways that may lead
Direct or roundabout to wealth or power,
Some plain, plump mark was needed, to protect
From the degrading contact Christian folk.
25 The evil had grown monstrous: certain Jews
Wore such a haughty air, had so refined,
With super-subtile arts, strict, monkish lives,
And studious habit, the coarse Hebrew type,
One might have elbowed in the public mart
30 Iscariot,—nor suspected one's soul-peril.
Christ's blood! it sets my flesh a creep to think!
We may breathe freely now, not fearing taint,
Praise be our good Lord Bishop! He keeps count
Of every Jew, and prints on cheek or chin
35 The scarlet stamp of separateness, of shame.
No beard, blue-black, grizzled or Judas-colored,
May hide that damning little wafer-flame.
When one appears therewith, the urchins know
EMMA LAZARUS 184
Good sport s at hand; they fling their stones and mud,
Sure of their game. But most the wisdom shows 40
Upon the unbelievers' selves; they learn
Their proper rank; crouch, cringe, and hide,—lay by
Their insolence of self-esteem; no more
Flaunt forth in rich attire, but in dull weeds,
Slovenly donned, would slink past unobserved; 45
Bow servile necks and crook obsequious knees,
Chin sunk in hollow chest, eyes fixed on earth
Or blinking sidewise, but to apprehend
Whether or not the hated spot be spied.
I warrant my lord Bishop has full hands, 50
Guarding the Red Disk—lest one rogue escape!
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS I8
5
A TRANSLATION AN D TWO IMITATIONS
I.
Donna Clara.
(From the German of Heine).*
In the evening through her garden
Wanders the Alcalde s daughter,
Festal sounds of drum and trumpet
Ring out hither from the Castle.
5 "I am weary of the dances,
Honeyed words of adulation
From the knights who still compare me
To the sun with dainty phrases.
Yes, of all things I am weary,
10 Since I first beheld by moonlight
Him, my cavalier, whose zither
Nightly draws me to my casement.
As he stands so slim and daring,
With his flaming eyes that sparkle,
15 And with nobly pallid features,
Truly, he St. George resembles."
Thus went Donna Clara dreaming,
On the ground her eyes were fastened.
When she raised them, lo! before her
20 Stood the handsome knightly stranger.
Pressing hands and whispering passion,
These twain wander in the moonlight,
Gently doth the breeze caress them,
The enchanted roses greet them.
1
 Translation of "Donna Clara" from Buck der Lieder. See Heine, Werke, 1:312-19.
EMMA LAZARUS 186
The enchanted roses greet them, 25
And they glow like Love's own heralds.
"Tell me, tell me, my beloved,
Wherefore all at once thou blushest?"
"Gnats were stinging me, my darling,
And I hate these gnats in summer 30
E'en as though they were a rabble
Of vile Jews with long, hooked noses."
"Heed not gnats nor Jews, beloved,"
Spake the knight with fond endearments.
From the almond trees dropped downward 35
Myriad snowy flakes of blossoms.
Myriad snowy flakes of blossoms
Shed around them fragrant odors.
"Tell me, tell me, my beloved,
Looks thy heart on me with favor?" 40
"Yes, I love thee, O my darling,
And I swear it by our Savior,
Whom the accursed Jews did murder,
Long ago with wicked malice."
"Heed thou neither Jews nor Savior," 45
Spake the knight with fond endearments.
Far off waved, as in a vision,
Gleaming lilies bathed in moonlight.
Gleaming lilies bathed in moonlight
Seemed to watch the stars above them. 50
"Tell me, tell me, my beloved,
Didst thou not erewhile swear falsely?"
"Naught is false in me, my darling,
E'en as in my veins there floweth
Not a drop of blood that's Moorish, 55
Neither of foul Jewish current."
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS I8
7
"Heed not Moors nor Jews, beloved,"
Spake the knight with fond endearments.
Then towards a grove of myrtles
60 Leads he the Alcalde's daughter.
And with Love's slight subtile meshes,
He has trapped her and entangled.
Brief their words, but long their kisses,
For their hearts are overflowing.
65 What a melting bridal carol
Sings the nightingale, the pure one.
How the fire-flies in the grasses
Trip their sparkling torchlight dances!
In the grove the silence deepens,
70 Naught is heard save furtive rustling
Of the swaying myrtle branches,
And the breathing of the flowers.
But the sound of drum and trumpet
Burst forth sudden from the castle.
75 Rudely they awaken Clara,
Pillowed on her Lover s bosom.
"Hark! they summon me, my darling!
But before we part, oh tell me,
Tell me what thy precious name is,
80 Which so closely thou hast hidden."
Then the knight with gentle laughter,
Kissed the fingers of his Donna,
Kissed her lips and kissed her forehead,
And at last these words he uttered:
85 "I, Senora, your beloved,
Am the son of the respected,
Worthy, erudite Grand Rabbi,
Israel of Saragossa."
EMMA LAZARUS 188
(The ensemble of the romance is a scene of my own life—only
the Park of Berlin has become the Alcalde's garden, the Baroness
a Senora, and myself a St. George or even an Apollo. This was
only to be the first part of a trilogy, the second of which shows
the hero jeered at by his own child who does not know him,
whilst the third discovers this child who has become a
Dominican, and is torturing to the death his Jewish brethren.
The refrain of these two pieces corresponds with that of the first.
Indeed this little poem was not intended to excite laughter, still
less to denote a mocking spirit. I merely wished without any
definite purpose to render with epic impartiality in this poem
an individual circumstance, and at the same time something
general and universal—a moment in the world s history which
was distinctly reflected in my experience, and I had conceived
the whole idea in a spirit which was anything rather than smil-
ing, but serious and painful, so much so, that it was to form the
first part of a tragic trilogy.
HEINE'S CORRESPONDENCE.
1
Guided by these hints, I have endeavored to carry out in the two
following original Ballads the Poet's first conception.
EMMA LAZARUS.)
II.
Don Pedrillo.
Not a lad in Saragossa
Nobler-featured, haughtier-tempered,
Than the Alcalde's youthful grandson,
Donna Clara s boy Pedrillo.
Handsome as the Prince of Evil,
And devout as St. Ignatius.
Deft at fence, unmatched with zither,
Miniature of knightly virtues.
Heine, to Moses Moser, 5 or 6 Nov. 1823, in Heinrich Heine, Briefe, ed. Friedrich
Hirth, 6 vols. (Mainz: Florian KupferbergVerlag, 1950-51) 1:119.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 189
5
I
Truly an unfailing blessing,
10 To his pious, widowed mother,
To the beautiful, lone matron
Who forswore the world to rear him.
For her beauty hath but ripened
In such wise as the pomegranate
15 Putteth by her crown of blossoms,
For her richer crown of fruitage.
Still her hand is claimed and courted,
Still she spurns her proudest suitors,
Doting on a phantom passion,
20 And upon her boy Pedrillo.
Like a saint lives Donna Clara,
First at matins, last at vespers,
Half her fortune she expendeth
Buying masses for the needy.
25 Visiting the poor afflicted,
Infinite is her compassion,
Scorning not the Moorish beggar,
Nor the wretched Jew despising.
And—a scandal to the faithful,
30 E'en she hath been known to welcome
To her castle the young Rabbi,
Offering to his tribe her bounty.
Rarely hath he crossed the threshold,
Yet the thought that he hath crossed it,
35 Burns like poison in the marrow
Of the zealous youth Pedrillo.
EMMA LAZARUS I9O
By the blessed Saint lago,
1
 o
He hath vowed immortal hatred
To these circumcised intruders
Who pollute the soil of Spaniards. 40
Seated in his mother s garden,
At high noon the boy Pedrillo
Playeth with his favorite parrot,
Golden-green with streaks of scarlet.
"Pretty Dodo, speak thy lesson," 45
Coaxed Pedrillo—"thief and traitor"—
"Thief and traitor"—croaked the parrot,
"Is the yellow-skirted Rabbi."
And the boy with peals of laughter,
Stroked his favorites head of emerald, 50
Raised his eyes, and lo! before him
Stood the yellow-skirted Rabbi.
In his dark eyes gleamed no anger,
No hot flush o'erspread his features.
'Neath his beard his pale lips quivered, 55
And a shadow crossed his forehead.
Very gentle was his aspect,
And his voice was mild and friendly,
"Evil words, my son, thou speakest,
Teaching to the fowls of heaven. 60
"In our Talmud it stands written,
Thrice curst is the tongue of slander,
Poisoning also with its victim,
Him who speaks and him who listens."
2
1
 St. lago, or St. James, is the patron saint of Spain, Christian defenders of Spain, soldiers,
and conquistadors.
2
 See Amkhin isb.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 191
6s But no whit abashed, Pedrillo,
"What care I for curse ofTalmud?
'Tis no slander to speak evil
Of the murderers of our Savior.
70 "To your beard I will repeat it,
That I only bide my manhood,
To wreak all my lawful hatred,
On thyself and on thy people."
Very gently spoke the Rabbi,
75 "Have a care, my son Pedrillo,
Thou art orphaned, and who knoweth
But thy father loved this people?"
"Think you words like these will touch me?
Such I laugh to scorn, sir Rabbi,
80 From high heaven, my sainted father
On my deeds will smile in blessing.
"Loyal knight was he and noble,
And my mother oft assures me,
Ne'er she saw so pure a Christian,
'Tis from him my zeal deriveth."
85
"What if he were such another
As myself who stand before thee?"
"I should curse the hour that bore me,
I should die of shame and horror."
90 "Harsher is thy creed than ours;
For had I a son as comely
As Pedrillo, I would love him,
Love him were he thrice a Christian.
"In his youth my youth renewing
95 Pamper, fondle, die to serve him,
Only breathing through his spirit—
Couldst thou not love such a father?"
EMMA LAZARUS 192
Faltering spoke the deep-voiced Rabbi,
With white lips and twitching fingers,
Then in clear, young, steady treble,
Answered him the boy Pedrillo: 100
"At the thought my heart revolteth,
All your tribe offend my senses,
They're an eyesore to my vision,
And a stench unto my nostrils.
"When I meet these unbelievers, 105
With thick lips and eagle noses,
Thus I scorn them, thus revile them,
Thus I spit upon their garment."
And the haughty youth passed onward,
Bearing on his wrist his parrot, no
And the yellow-skirted Rabbi
With bowed head sought Donna Clara.
III.
Fra Pedro.
Golden lights and lengthening shadows,
Flings the splendid sun declining,
O'er the monastery garden
Rich in flower, fruit and foliage.
Through the avenue of nut trees, 5
Pace two grave and ghostly friars,
Snowy white their gowns and girdles,
Black as night their cowls and mantles.
Lithe and ferret-eyed the younger,
Black his scapular denoting 10
A lay brother; his companion
Large, imperious, towers above him.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
193
'Tis the abbot, great Fra Pedro,
Famous through all Saragossa,
15 For his quenchless zeal in crushing
Heresy amidst his townfolk.
Handsome still with hood and tonsure,
E'en as when the boy Pedrillo,
Insolent with youth and beauty,
20 Who reviled the gentle Rabbi.
Lo, the level sun strikes sparkles
From his dark eyes brightly flashing,
Stern his voice: "These too shall perish.
I have vowed extermination.
25 "Tell not me of skill or virtue,
Filial love or woman's beauty.
Jews are Jews, as serpents serpents,
In themselves abomination."
Earnestly the other pleaded,
30 "If my zeal, thrice reverend master,
E'er afforded thee assistance,
Serving thee as flesh serves spirit,
"Hounding, scourging, flaying, burning,
Casting into chains or exile,
35 At thy bidding these vile wretches,
Hear and heed me now, my master.
"These be nowise like their brethren,
Ben Jehudah is accounted
Saragossa s first physician,
40 Loved by colleague as by patient.
"And his daughter Donna Zara
Is our city's pearl of beauty,
EMMA LAZARUS 194
Like the clusters of the vineyard,
Droop the ringlets o'er her temples.
"Like the moon in starry heavens, 45
Shines her face among her people,
And her form hath all the languor,
Grace and glamour of the palm tree.
"Well thou knowest, thrice reverend master,
This is not their first affliction, 50
Was it not our holy office,
Whose bribed menials fired their dwelling?
"Ere dawn broke, the smoke ascended,
Choked the stairways, rilled the chambers,
Waked the household to the terror 55
Of the flaming death that threatened.
"Then the poor bed-ridden mother
Knew her hour had come; two daughters,
Twinned in form, and mind, and spirit,
And their father—who would save them? 60
"Towards her door sprang Ben Jehudah,
Donna Zara flew behind him
Round his neck her white arms wreathing,
Drew him from the burning chamber.
"There within, her sister Zillah 65
Stirred no limb to shun her torture,
Held her mother's hand and kissed her,
Saying, 'We will go together.'
"This the outer throng could witness,
As the flames enwound the dwelling, 70
Like a glory they illumined
Awfully the martyred daughter.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
195
"Closer, fiercer, round they gathered,
Not a natural cry escaped her,
75 Helpless clung to her her mother,
Hand in hand they went together.
"Since that'Act of Faith'
1
 three winters
Have rolled by, yet on the forehead
Of Jehudah is imprinted
80 Still the horror of that morning.
"Saragossa hath respected
His false creed; a man of sorrows,
He hath walked secure among us,
And his art repays our sufferance."
85 Thus he spoke and ceased. The Abbot
Lent him an impatient hearing,
Then outbroke with angry accent,
"We have borne three years, thou sayest?
"'Tis enough; my vow is sacred.
90 These shall perish with their brethren.
Hark ye! In my veins' pure current
Were a single drop found Jewish,
"I would shrink not from outpouring
All my life blood, but to purge it.
95 Shall I gentler prove to others?
Mercy would be sacrilegious.
"Ne'er again at thy soul's peril,
Speak to me of Jewish beauty,
Jewish skill, or Jewish virtue.
100 I have said.—Do thou remember."
1
 During the Spanish Inquisition, final verdicts were pronounced at the auto-da-fe ("act
of faith"). Those with capital sentences suffered death by fire.
EMMA LAZARUS 196
Down behind the purple hillside
Dropped the sun; above the garden
Rang the Angelus' clear cadence
Summoning the monks to vespers.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 197
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE HEBREW
POETS OF MEDIAEVAL SPAIN
1
I.
SOLOMON BEN JUDAH GABIROL.
2
(Died between 1070-80.)
"Am I sipping the honey of the lips?
Am I drunk with the wine of a kiss?
Have I culled the flowers of the cheek,
Have I sucked the fresh fragrance of the breath?
Nay, it is the Song of Gabirol that has revived me,
The perfume of his youthful, spring-tide breeze."
MOSES BEN ESRA.
"I will engrave my songs indelibly upon the heart of the world,
so that no one can efface them."
GABIROL.
Night-Thoughts.
Will night already spread her wings and weave
Her dusky robe about the day's bright form,
The following poems are translations from the German of Michael Sachs and
Abraham Geiger, who translated them from Hebrew. See Geiger, Divan des Castiliers
Abu'l-Hassan Juda ha-Levi (Breslau, 1851); Geiger, Judische Dichtungen der Spanischen
und Italienischen Schule (Leipzig, 1856); Geiger, Salomo Gabirol und Seine Dichtungen
(Leipzig, 1867); and Sachs, Die Religiose Poesie derjuden in Spanien (Berlin, 1845). In
1980 Arno Press issued reprint editions of Die Religiose Poesie and Salomo Gabirol. See
also Lazarus, to Philip Cowen, in The American Hebrew (9 Dec. 1887): 72.
Solomon ibn Gabirol (c.i020-c.iO57), one of the most brilliant poets and philoso-
phers of the Jewish golden age in Muslim Spain. Also known by a Latin name,
Avicebron, he wrote in Arabic, the dominant language of Andalusian literature at the
time, as well as Hebrew. A prolific, influential, and gifted writer (one who often
boasted about his talents), Gabirol composed numerous religious and secular poems
in addition to Neo-Platonic work in ethics and metaphysics. See Selected Poems of
Solomon Ibn Gabirol, trans. Peter Cole (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000); and Selected
Religious Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, trans. Israel Zangwill, ed. Israel Davidson
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1923).
EMMA LAZARUS 198
I
2
Boldly the sun's fair countenance displacing,
And swathe it with her shadow in broad day?
So a green wreath of mist enrings the moon, 5
Till envious clouds do quite encompass her.
No wind! and yet the slender stem is stirred,
With faint, slight motion as from inward tremor.
Mine eyes are full of grief—who sees me, asks,
"Oh wherefore dost thou cling unto the ground?" 10
My friends discourse with sweet and soothing words;
They all are vain, they glide above my head.
I fain would check my tears; would fain enlarge
Unto infinity, my heart—in vain!
Grief presses hard my breast, therefore my tears 15
Have scarcely dried, ere they again spring forth.
For these are streams no furnace heat may quench,
Nebuchadnezzar's flames may dry them not.
1
What is the pleasure of the day for me,
If, in its crucible, I must renew 20
Incessantly the pangs of purifying?
Up, challenge, wrestle, and o'ercome! Be strong!
The late grapes cover all the vine with fruit.
I am not glad, though even the lion's pride
Content itself upon the field's poor grass. 25
My spirit sinks beneath the tide, soars not
With fluttering seamews on the moist, soft strand.
I follow fortune not, where'er she lead.
Lord o'er myself, I banish her, compel
And though her clouds should rain no blessed dew, 30
Though she withhold the crown, the heart s desire,
Though all deceive, though honey change to gall,
Still am I lord, and will in freedom strive.
Meditations.
Forget thine anguish,
Vexed heart, again.
1
 See Daniel 3.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 199
Why shouldst thou languish,
With earthly pain?
5 The husk shall slumber,
Bedded in clay
Silent and sombre,
Oblivion s prey!
But, Spirit immortal,
10 Thou at Death s portal,
Tremblest with fear.
If he caress thee,
Curse thee or bless thee,
Thou must draw near,
15 From him the worth of thy works to hear.
Why full of terror,
Compassed with error,
Trouble thy heart,
For thy mortal part?
20 The soul flies home—
The corpse is dumb.
Of all thou didst have,
Follows naught to the grave.
Thou fliest thy nest,
25 Swift as a bird to thy place of rest.
What avail grief and fasting,
Where nothing is lasting?
Pomp, domination,
Become tribulation.
30 In a health-giving draught,
A death-dealing shaft.
Wealth—an illusion,
Power—a lie,
Over all, dissolution
35 Creeps silent and sly.
Unto others remain
The goods thou didst gain
With infinite pain.
EMMA LAZARUS 200
Life is a vine-branch;
A vintager, death. 40
He threatens and lowers
More near with each breath.
Then hasten, arise!
Seek God, oh my soul!
For time quicklyFlies, flies,45
Still far is the goal.
Vain heart praying dumbly,
Learn to prize humbly,
The meanest of fare.
Forget all thy sorrow, 50
Behold, Death is there!
Dove-like lamenting,
Be full of repenting,
Lift vision supernal
To raptures eternal. 55
On ev'ry occasion
Seek lasting salvation.
Pour thy heart out in weeping,
While others are sleeping.
Pray to Him when all's still, 60
Performing His will.
And so shall the angel of peace be thy warden,
And guide thee at last to the heavenly garden.
Hymn.
Almighty! what is man?
But flesh and blood.
Like shadows flee his days,
He marks not how they vanish from his gaze,
Suddenly, he must die— 5
He droppeth, stunned, into nonentity.
Almighty! what is man?
A body frail and weak,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 2OI
45
Full of deceit and lies,
10 Of vile hypocrisies.
Now like a flower blowing,
Now scorched by sunbeams glowing.
And wilt thou of his trespasses inquire?
How may he ever bear
15 Thine anger just, thy vengeance dire?
Punish him not, but spare,
For he is void of power and strength!
Almighty! what is man?
By filthy lust possessed,
20 Whirled in a round of lies,
Fond frenzy swells his breast.
The pure man sinks in mire and slime,
The noble shrinketh not from crime,
Wilt thou resent on him the charms of sin?
25 Like fading grass,
So shall he pass.
Like chaff that blows
Where the wind goes.
Then spare him, be thou merciful, O King,
30 Upon the dreaded day of reckoning!
Almighty! what is man?
The haughty son of time
Drinks deep of sin,
And feeds on crime
35 Seething like waves that roll,
Hot as a glowing coal.
And wilt thou punish him for sins inborn?
Lost and forlorn,
Then like the weakling he must fall,
40 Who some great hero strives withal.
Oh, spare him, therefore! let him win
Grace for his sin!
202 EMMA LAZARUS
Almighty! what is man?
Spotted in guilty wise,
A stranger unto faith, 45
Whose tongue is stained with lies,
And shalt thou count his sins—so is he lost,
Uprooted by thy breath,
Like to a stream by tempest tossed.
His life falls from him like a cloak, 50
He passes into nothingness, like smoke.
Then spare him, punish not, be kind, I pray,
To him who dwelleth in the dust, an image wrought in clay!
Almighty! what is man?
A withered bough! 55
When he is awe-struck by approaching doom,
Like a dried blade of grass, so weak, so low
The pleasure of his life is changed to gloom.
He crumbles like a garment spoiled with moth;
According to his sins wilt thou be wroth? 60
He melts like wax before the candle s breath,
Yea, like thin water, so he vanisheth,
Oh, spare him therefore, for thy gracious name,
And be not too severe upon his shame!
Almighty! what is man? 65
A faded leaf]
If thou dost weigh him in the balance—lo!
He disappears—a breath that thou dost blow.
His heart is ever filled
With lust of lies unstilled. 70
Wilt thou bear in mind his crime
Unto all time?
He fades away like clouds sun-kissed,
Dissolves like mist.
Then spare him! let him love and mercy win, 75
According to thy grace, and not according to his sin!
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 2O3
To a Detractor.
The Autumn promised, and he keeps
His word unto the meadow-rose.
The pure, bright lightnings herald Spring,
Serene and glad the fresh earth shows.
5 The rain has quenched her children's thirst,
Her cheeks, but now so cold and dry,
Are soft and fair, a laughing face;
With clouds of purple shines the sky,
Though filled with light, yet veiled with haze.
10 Hark! hark! the turtle's mocking note
Outsings the valley-pigeon's lays.
Her wings are gemmed, and from her throat,
When the clear sun gleams back again,
It seems to me as though she wore
15 About her neck a jewelled chain.
Say, wilt thou darken such a light,
Wilt drag the clouds from heaven's height?
Although thy heart with anger swell,
Yet firm as marble, mine doth dwell.
20 Therein no fear thy wrath begets.
It is not shaken by thy threats.
Yea, hurl thy darts, thy weapons wield,
The strength of youth is still my shield.
My winged steed toward the heights doth bound,
25 The dust whirls upward from the ground;
My song is scanty, dost thou deem
Thine eloquence a mighty stream?
Only the blameless offering,
Not the profusion man may bring,
30 Prevaileth with our Lord and King.
The long days out of minutes grow,
And out of months the years arise,
Wilt thou be master of the wise,
Then learn the hidden stream to know,
35 That from the inmost heart doth flow.
204 EMMA LAZARUS
Fragment.
My friend spoke with insinuating tongue:
"Drink wine, and thy flesh shall be made whole. Look how
it hisses in the leathern bottle like a captured serpent."
Oh fool! can the sun be forged into a cask stopped with earthly
bungs. I know not that the power of wine has ever over-
mastered my sorrows; for these mighty giants I have found
as yet no resting-place.
Stanzas.
"With tears thy grief thou dost bemoan,
Tears that would melt the hardest stone,
Oh, wherefore sing st thou not the vine?
Why chant st thou not the praise of wine?
It chases pain with cunning art,
 5
The craven slinks from out thy heart."
But I: Poor fools the wine may cheat,
Lull them with lying visions sweet.
Upon the wings of storms may bear
The heavy burden of their care.
 I0
The father s heart may harden so,
He feeleth not his own child's woe.
No ocean is the cup, no sea,
To drown my broad, deep misery.
It grows so rank, you cut it all,
 I5
The aftermath springs just as tall.
My heart and flesh are worn away,
Mine eyes are darkened from the day.
The lovely morning-red behold
Wave to the breeze her flag of gold.
 20
The hosts of stars above the world,
Like banners vanishing are furled.
The dew shines bright; I bide forlorn,
And shudder with the chill of morn.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 205
Wine and Grief.
With heavy groans did I approach my friends,
Heavy as though the mountains I would move.
The flagon they were murdering; they poured
Into the cup, wild-eyed, the grape s red blood.
5 No, they killed not, they breathed new life therein.
Then, too, in fiery rapture, burned my veins,
But soon the fumes had fled. In vain, in vain!
Ye cannot fill the breach of the rent heart.
Ye crave a sensuous joy; ye strive in vain
10 To cheat with flames of passion, my despair.
So when the sinking sun draws near to night,
The sky's bright cheeks fade 'neath those tresses black.
Ye laugh—but silently the soul weeps on;
Ye cannot stifle her sincere lament.
Defiance.
"Conquer the gloomy night of thy sorrow, for the
morning greets thee with laughter.
Rise and clothe thyself with noble pride,
Break loose from the tyranny of grief.
Thou standest alone among men,
5 Thy song is like a pearl in beauty."
So spake my friend. 'Tis well!
The billows of the stormy sea which overwhelmed my
soul,—
These I subdue; I quake not
Before the bow and arrow of destiny.
10 I endured with patience when he deceitfully lied to me
With his treacherous smile.
Yea, boldly I defy Fate,
I cringe not to envious Fortune.
I mock the towering floods.
15 My brave heart does not shrink—
206 EMMA LAZARUS
This heart of mine, that, albeit young in years,
Is none the less rich in deep, keen-eyed experience.
A Degenerate Age.
Where is the man who has been tried and found strong
and sound?
Where is the friend of reason and of knowledge?
I see only sceptics and weaklings.
I see only prisoners in the durance of the senses,
And every fool and every spendthrift
Thinks himself as great a master as Aristotle.
Think'st thou that they have written poems?
Call st thou that a Song?
I call it the cackling of ravens.
The zeal of the prophet must free poesy
From the embrace of wanton youths.
My song I have inscribed on the forehead of Time,
They know and hate it—for it is lofty.
II.
ABUL HASSAN JUDAH BEN HA-LEVI.
1
(Born between 1080-90.)
Love-Song.
"See'st thou o'er my shoulders falling,
Snake-like ringlets waving free?
Have no fear, for they are twisted
To allure thee unto me."
Judah Halevi (0.1075-1141), philosopher and perhaps the greatest Hebrew poet of
the golden age period in Spain. Perhaps most famous for his poems of longing for
Zion, Halevi wrote about 800 poems—love poems, elegies, personal pieces, as well
as liturgical and religious poems. See Ninety-Two Poems and Hymns ofYehuda Halevi,
ed. Franz Rosenzweig et al. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000); and
Selected Poems of Jehudah Halevi, trans. Nina Salaman, ed. Heinrich Brody
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1924).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 2OJ
5
1
5 Thus she spake, the gentle dove,
Listen to thy plighted love:—
"Ah, how long I wait, until
Sweetheart cometh back (she said)
Laying his caressing hand
10 Underneath my burning head."
Separation.
And so we twain must part! Oh linger yet,
Let me still feed my glance upon thine eyes.
Forget not, love, the days of our delight,
And I our nights of bliss shall ever prize.
5 In dreams thy shadowy image I shall see,
Oh even in my dream be kind to me!
Though I were dead, I none the less would hear
Thy step, thy garment rustling on the sand.
And if thou waft me greetings from the grave,
10 I shall drink deep the breath of that cold land.
Take thou my days, command this life of mine,
If it can lengthen out the space of thine.
No voice I hear from lips death-pale and chill,
Yet deep within my heart it echoes still.
15 My frame remains—my soul to thee yearns forth.
A shadow I must tarry still on earth.
Back to the body dwelling here in pain,
Return, my soul, make haste and come again!
Longing for Jerusalem.
Oh, city of the world, with sacred splendor blest,
My spirit yearns to thee from out the far-ofFWest,
A stream of love wells forth when I recall thy day,
Now is thy temple waste, thy glory passed away.
5 Had I an eagle's wings, straight would I fly to thee,
2O8 EMMA LAZARUS
Moisten thy holy dust with wet cheeks streaming free.
Oh, how I long for thee! albeit thy King has gone,
Albeit where balm once flowed, the serpent dwells alone.
Could I but kiss thy dust, so would I fain expire,
As sweet as honey then, my passion, my desire! 10
On the Voyage to Jerusalem.
I.
My two-score years and ten are over,
Never again shall youth be mine.
The years are ready-winged for flying,
What cravst thou still of feast and wine?
Wilt thou still court man s acclamation, 5
Forgetting what the Lord hath said?
And forfeiting thy weal eternal,
By thine own guilty heart misled?
Shalt thou have never done with folly,
Still fresh and new must it arise? 10
Oh heed it not, heed not the senses,
But follow God, be meek and wise;
Yea, profit by thy days remaining,
They hurry swiftly to the goal.
Be zealous in the Lord's high service, 15
And banish falsehood from thy soul.
Use all thy strength, use all thy fervor,
Defy thine own desires, awaken!
Be not afraid when seas are foaming,
And earth to her foundations shaken. 20
Benumbed the hand then of the sailor,
The captain s skill and power are lamed.
Gaily they sailed with colors flying,
And now turn home again ashamed.
The ocean is our only refuge, 25
The sandbank is our only goal,
The masts are swaying as with terror,
And quivering does the vessel roll.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 2Op
The mad wind frolics with the billows,
30 Now smooths them low, now lashes high.
Now they are storming up like lions,
And now like serpents sleek they lie;
And wave on wave is ever pressing,
They hiss, they whisper, soft of tone.
35 Alack! was that the vessel splitting?
Are sail and mast and rudder gone?
Here, screams of fright, there, silent weeping,
The bravest feels his courage fail.
What stead our prudence or our wisdom?
40 The soul itself can naught avail.
And each one to his God is crying,
Soar up, my soul, to Him aspire,
Who wrought a miracle for Jordan,
Extol Him, oh angelic choir!
45 Remember Him who stays the tempest,
The stormy billows doth control,
Who quickeneth the lifeless body,
And fills the empty frame with soul.
Behold! once more appears a wonder,
50 The angry waves erst raging wild,
Like quiet flocks of sheep reposing,
So soft, so still, so gently mild.
The sun descends, and high in heaven,
The golden-circled moon doth stand.
55 Within the sea the stars are straying,
Like wanderers in an unknown land.
The lights celestial in the waters
Are flaming clearly as above,
As though the very heavens descended,
60 To seal a covenant of love.
Perchance both sea and sky, twin oceans,
From the same source of grace are sprung.
'Twixt these my heart, a third sea, surges,
With songs resounding, clearly sung.
2IO EMMA LAZARUS
II.
A watery waste the sinful world has grown,
With no dry spot whereon the eye can rest,
No man, no beast, no bird to gaze upon,
Can all be dead, with silent sleep possessed?
Oh, how I long the hills and vales to see, 5
To find myself on barren steppes were bliss.
I peer about, but nothing greeteth me,
Naught save the ship, the clouds, the waves' abyss,
The crocodile which rushes from the deeps;
The flood foams gray; the whirling waters reel, 10
Now like its prey whereon at last it sweeps,
The ocean swallows up the vessel's keel.
The billows rage—exult, oh soul of mine,
Soon shalt thou enter the Lord's sacred shrine!
III.
To THE WEST WIND.
O West, how fragrant breathes thy gentle air,
Spikenard and aloes on thy pinions glide.
Thou blow'st from spicy chambers, not from there
Where angry winds and tempests fierce abide.
As on a bird's wings thou dost waft me home, 5
Sweet as a bundle of rich myrrh to me.
And after thee yearn all the throngs that roam
And furrow with light keel the rolling sea.
Desert her not—our ship—bide with her oft,
When the day sinks and in the morning light. 10
Smooth thou the deeps and make the billows soft,
Nor rest save at our goal, the sacred height.
Chide thou the East that chafes the raging flood,
And swells the towering surges wild and rude.
What can I do, the elements' poor slave? 15
Now do they hold me fast, now leave me free;
Cling to the Lord, my soul, for He will save,
Who caused the mountains and the winds to be.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 211
III .
MOSES BEN ESRA.
1
(About iioo.)
Extracts from the Book of Tarshish,
or "Necklace of Pearls."
I.
The shadow of the houses leave behind,
In the cool boscage of the grove reclined
The wine of friendship from love's goblet drink,
And entertain with cheerful speech the mind.
5 Drink, friend! behold, the dreary winter's gone,
The mantle of old age has time withdrawn.
The sunbeam glitters in the morning dew,
O'er hill and vale youth's bloom is surging on.
Cup-bearer! quench with snow the goblet's fire,
10 Even as the wise man cools and stills his ire.
Look, when the jar is drained, upon the brim
The light foam melteth with the heart's desire.
Cup-bearer! bring anear the silver bowl,
And with the glowing gold fulfil the whole,
15 Unto the weak new vigor it imparts,
And without lance subdues the hero's soul.
My love sways, dancing, like the myrtle-tree,
The masses of her curls disheveled, see!
She kills me with her darts, intoxicates
20 My burning blood, and will not set me free.
Within the aromatic garden come,
And slowly in its shadows let us roam,
1
 Moses ibn Ezra (0.1060-0.1139), Hebrew poet and critic of golden age Spain. See
Selected Poems of Moses Ibn Ezra, 2nd ed., trans. Solomon Solis-Cohen, ed. Heinrich
Brody (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1945).
212 EMMA LAZARUS
The foliage be the turban for our brows,
And the green branches o'er our heads a dome.
All pain thou with the goblet shalt assuage, 25
The wine-cup heals the sharpest pangs that rage,
Let others crave inheritance of wealth,
Joy be our portion and our heritage.
Drink in the garden, friend, anigh the rose,
Richer than spice s breath the soft air blows. 30
If it should cease a little traitor then.
A zephyr light its secret would disclose.
II.
Thou who art clothed in silk, who drawest on
Proudly thy raiment of fine linen spun,
Bethink thee of the day when thou alone
Shalt dwell at last beneath the marble stone.
Anigh the nests of adders thine abode, 5
With the earth-crawling serpent and the toad.
Trust in the Lord, He will sustain thee there,
And without fear thy soul shall rest with God.
If the world flatter thee with soft-voiced art,
Know 'tis a cunning witch who charms thy heart, 10
Whose habit is to wed man's soul with grief,
And those who are close-bound in love to part.
He who bestows his wealth upon the poor,
Has only lent it to the Lord, be sure—
Of what avail to clasp it with clenched hand? 15
It goes not with us to the grave obscure.
The voice of those who dwell within the tomb,
Who in corruption's house have made their home;
"Oh ye who wander o'er us still to-day,
When will ye come to share with us the gloom?" 20
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 213
How canst thou ever of the world complain,
And murmuring, burden it with all thy pain?
Silence! thou art a traveler at an inn,
A guest, who may but over night remain.
25 Be thou not wroth against the proud, but show
How he who yesterday great joy did know,
To-day is begging for his very bread,
And painfully upon a crutch must go.
How foolish they whose faith is fixed upon
30 The treasures of their worldly wealth alone,
Far wiser were it to obey the Lord,
And only say, "the will of God be done!"
Has Fortune smiled on thee? Oh do not trust
Her reckless joy, she still deceives and must.
35 Perpetual snares she spreads about thy feet,
Thou shalt not rest till thou art mixed with dust.
Man is a weaver on the earth, 'tis said,
Who weaves and weaves—his own days are the thread,
And when the length allotted he hath spun,
40 All life is over, and all hope is dead.
In the Night.
Unto the house of prayer my spirit yearns,
Unto the sources of her being turns,
To where the sacred light of heaven burns,
She struggles thitherward by day and night.
5 The splendor of God's glory blinds her eyes,
Up without wings she soareth to the skies,
With silent aspiration seeks to rise,
In dusky evening and in darksome night.
214 EMMA LAZARUS
To her the wonders of God's works appear,
She longs with fervor Him to draw anear, 10
The tidings of His glory reach her ear,
From morn to even, and from night to night.
The banner of thy grace did o'er me rest,
Yet was thy worship banished from my breast.
Almighty, thou didst seek me out and test 15
To try and to instruct me in the night.
I dare not idly on my pillow lie,
With winged feet to the shrine I fain would fly,
When chained by leaden slumbers heavily,
Men rest in imaged shadows, dreams of night. 20
Infatuate I trifled youth away,
In nothingness dreamed through my manhood's day.
Therefore my streaming tears I may not stay,
They are my meat and drink by day and night.
In flesh imprisoned is the son of light, 25
This life is but a bridge when seen aright.
Rise in the silent hour and pray with might,
Awake and call upon thy God by night!
Hasten to cleanse thyself of sin, arise!
Follow Truth's path that leads unto the skies, 30
As swift as yesterday existence flies,
Brief even as a watch within the night.
Man enters life for trouble; all he has,
And all that he beholds, is pain, alas!
Like to a flower does he bloom and pass, 35
He fadeth like a vision of the night.
The surging floods of life around him roar,
Death feeds upon him, pity is no more,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 215
To others all his riches he gives o'er,
40 And dieth in the middle hour of night.
Crushed by the burden of my sins I pray,
Oh, wherefore shunned I not the evil way?
Deep are my sighs, I weep the livelong day,
And wet my couch with tears night after night.
45 My spirit stirs, my streaming tears still run,
Like to the wild birds' notes my sorrows' tone,
In the hushed silence loud resounds my groan,
My soul arises moaning in the night.
Within her narrow cell oppressed with dread,
50 Bare of adornment and with grief-bowed head
Lamenting, many a tear her sad eyes shed,
She weeps with anguish in the gloomy night.
For tears my burden seem to lighten best,
Could I but weep my heart's blood, I might rest.
55 My spirit bows with mighty grief oppressed,
I utter forth my prayer within the night.
Youth's charm has like a fleeting shadow gone,
With eagle wings the hours of life have flown.
Alas! the time when pleasure I have known,
60 I may not now recall by day or night.
The haughty scorn pursues me of my foe,
Evil his thought, yet soft his speech and low.
Forget it not, but bear his purpose so
Forever in thy mind by day and night.
65 Observe a pious fast, be whole again,
Hasten to purge thy heart of every stain.
No more from prayer and penitence refrain,
But turn unto thy God by day and night.
2l6 EMMA LAZARUS
He speaks: "My son, yea, I will send thee aid,
Bend thou thy steps to me, be not afraid. 70
No nearer friend than I am, hast thou made,
Possess thy soul in patience one more night."
From the "Divan."
My thoughts impelled me to the resting-place
Where sleep my parents, many a friend and brother.
I asked them (no one heard and none replied):
"Do ye forsake me, too, oh father, mother?"
Then from the grave, without a tongue, these cried, 5
And showed my own place waiting by their side.
Love Song of Alcharisi.
1
I.
The long-closed door, oh open it again, send me back
once more my fawn that had fled.
On the day of our reunion, thou shalt rest by my side,
there wilt thou shed over me the streams of thy deli-
cious perfume.
Oh beautiful bride, what is the form of thy friend, that
thou say to me, Release him, send him away?
He is the beautiful-eyed one of ruddy glorious aspect—
that is my friend, him do thou detain.
II.
Hail to thee, Son of my friend, the ruddy, the bright
colored one! Hail to thee whose temples are like a
pomegranate.
Hasten to the refuge of thy sister, and protect the son of
Judah ben Solomon Al-Harizi (1170-1235), Jewish poet and translator from Spain.
See Judah Alharizi, The Book ofTahkemoni, ed. David Simha Segal (Oxford: Littman
Library of Jewish Civilization, 2002). Selections are available in anthologies such as:
The Jewish Poets of Spain, 900-1250, trans. David Goldstein (Harmondsworth: Penguin
Books, 1971), 167-70; and The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, ed.T. Carmi (New York:
Viking Press, 1981), 389-92.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 2IJ
Isaiah against the troops of the Ammonites.
What art thou, O Beauty, that thou shouldst inspire love?
that thy voice should ring like the voices of the bells
upon the priestly garments?
The hour wherein thou desirest my love, I shall hasten to
meet thee. Softly will I drop beside thee like the dew
upon Hermon.
THE END.
AN EPISTLE FROM JOSHUA IBNVIVES OF ALLORQUI TO His
FORMER MASTER, SOLOMON LEVI-PAUL, DE SANTA-
MARIA, BISHOP OF CARTAGENA, CHANCELLOR OF CASTILE,
AND PRIVY COUNCILLOR TO KING HENRY III. OF SPAIN.
[In this poem I have done little more than elaborate and versify
the account given in Graetz s History of the Jews (Vol. VIII. , page
77), of an Epistle actually written in the beginning of the 15 th
century by Joshua ben Joseph Ibn Vives to Paulus de Santa
Maria—EX.]
l
I.
Master and Sage, greetings and health to thee,
From thy most meek disciple! Deign once more
Endure me at thy feet, enlighten me,
As when upon my boyish head of yore,
Midst the rapt circle gathered round thy knee,
Thy sacred vials of learning thou didst pour.
By the large lustre of thy wisdom orbed
Be my black doubts illumined and absorbed.
1
 On 23 June 1882, in The American Hebrew issue that followed the publication of this
poem, Lazarus published "Notes to 'Epistle' of Joshua Ibn Vives ofAUorqui." Primarily
translations of passages from volume 8 of Graetz's Geschichte derjuden, these notes
elaborate the poem's historical context and identify historical figures in the poem.
See Heinrich Graetz, from Geschichte derjuden, in Appendix D. See also Graetz, History
of the Jews, 4:186-87.
2l8 EMMA LAZARUS
5
II.
Oft I recall that golden time when thou,
Born for no second station, heldst with us 10
The Rabbi's chair, who art priest and bishop now;
And we, the youth of Israel, curious,
Hung on thy counsels, lifted reverent brow
Unto thy sanctity, would fain discuss
With thee our Talmud problems good and evil, 15
Till startled by the risen stars o'er Seville.
III.
For on the Synagogue's high-pillared porch
Thou didst hold session, till the sudden sun
Beyond day's purple limit dropped his torch.
Then we, as dreamers, woke, to find outrun 20
Time's rapid sands.The flame that may not scorch,
Our hearts caught from thine eyes, thou Shining One.
I scent not yet sweet lemon-groves in flower,
But I re-breathe the peace of that deep hour.
IV.
We kissed the sacred borders of thy gown, 25
Brow-aureoled with thy blessing, we went forth
Through the hushed byways of the twilight town.
Then in all life but one thing seemed of worth,
To seek, find, love the Truth. She set her crown
Upon thy head, our Master, at thy birth; 30
She bade thy lips drop honey, fired thine eyes
With the unclouded glow of sun-steeped skies.
V.
Forgive me, if I dwell on that which, viewed
From thy new vantage-ground, must seem a mist
Of error, by auroral youth endued 35
With alien lustre. Still in me subsist
Those reeking vapors; faith and gratitude
Still lead me to the hand my boy-lips kissed
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 219
For benison and guidance. Not in wrath,
40 Master, but in wise patience, point my path.
VI.
For I, thy servant, gather in one sheaf
The venomed shafts of slander, which thy word
Shall shrivel to small dust. If haply grief,
Or momentary pain, I deal, my Lord,
45 Blame not thy servant's zeal, nor be thou deaf
Unto my soul's blind cry for light. Accord—
Pitying my love, if too superb to care
For hate-soiled name—an answer to my prayer.
VII.
To me, who, vine to stone, clung close to thee,
50 The very base of life appeared to quake
When first I knew thee fallen from us, to be
A tower of strength among our foes, to make
'Twixt Jew and Jew deep-cloven enmity.
I have wept gall and blood for thy dear sake.
55 But now with temperate soul I calmly search
Motive and cause that bound thee to the Church.
VIII.
Four motives possible therefor I reach—
Ambition, doubt, fear, or mayhap—conviction.
I hear in turn ascribed thee all and each
60 By ignorant folk who part not truth from fiction.
But I, whom even thyself didst stoop to teach,
May poise the scales, weigh this with that confliction,
Yea, sift the hid grain motive from the dense,
Dusty, eye-blinding chaff of consequence.
IX.
65 Ambition first! I find no fleck thereof
In all thy clean soul. What! could glory, gold,
Or sated senses lure thy lofty love?
No purple cloak to shield thee from the cold,
220 EMMA LAZARUS
No jeweled sign to flicker thereabove,
And dazzle men to homage—-joys untold 70
Of spiritual treasure, grace divine,
Alone (so saidst thou) coveting for thine!
X.
I saw thee mount with deprecating air,
Step after step, unto our Jewish throne
Of supreme dignity the Rabbis chair; 75
Shrinking from public honors thrust upon
Thy meek desert, regretting even there
The placid habit of thy life foregone;
Silence obscure, vast peace and austere days
Passed in wise contemplation, prayer and praise. 80
XL
One less than thou had ne'er known such regret.
How must thou suffer, who so lov'st the shade,
In Fame's full glare, whom one stride more shall set
Upon the Papal seat! I stand dismayed,
Familiar with thy fearful soul, and yet 85
Half glad, perceiving modest worth repaid
Even by the Christians! Could thy soul deflect?
No, no, thrice no! Ambition I reject!
XII.
Next doubt. Could doubt have swayed thee, then I ask,
How enters doubt within the soul of man? 90
Is it a door that opens, or a mask
That falls? and Truth's resplendent face we scan.
Nay, 'tis a creeping, small, blind worm, whose task
Is gnawing at Faith's base; the whole vast plan
Rots, crumbles, eaten inch by inch within, 95
And on its ruins falsehood springs and sin.
XIII.
But thee no doubt confused, no problems vexed.
Thy father's faith for thee proved bright and sweet.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 221
Thou foundst no rite superfluous, no text
ioo Obscure; the path was straight before thy feet.
Till thy baptismal day, thou, unperplexed
By foreign dogma, didst our prayers repeat,
Honor the God of Israel, fast and feast,
Even as thy people's wont, from first to least.
XIV.
105 Yes, Doubt I likewise must discard. Not sleek,
Full-faced, erect of head, men walk, when doubt
Writhes at their entrails; pinched and lean of cheek,
With brow pain-branded, thou hadst strayed about
As midst live men a ghost condemned to seek
no That soul he may nor live nor die without.
No doubts the font washed from thee, thou didst glide
From creed to creed, complete, sane-souled, clear-eyed.
XV.
Thy pardon, Master, if I dare sustain
The thesis thou couldst entertain a fear.
115 I would but rout thine enemies, who feign
Ignoble impulse prompted thy career.
I will but weigh the chances and make plain
To Envy's self the monstrous jest appear.
Though time, place, circumstance confirmed in seeming,
120 One word from thee should frustrate all their scheming.
XVI.
Was Israel glad in Seville on the day
Thou didst renounce him? Then mightst thou indeed
Snap finger at whate'er thy slanderers say.
Lothly must I admit, just then the seed
125 Of Jacob chanced upon a grievous way.
Still from the wounds of that red year we bleed.
The curse had fallen upon our heads—the sword
Was whetted for the chosen of the Lord.
222 EMMA LAZARUS
XVII.
There where we flourished like a fruitful palm,
We were uprooted, spoiled, lopped limb from limb. 130
A bolt undreamed of out of heavens calm,
So cracked our doom. We were destroyed by him
Whose hand since childhood we had clasped. With balm
Our head had been anointed, at the brim
Our cup ran over—now our day was done, 135
Our blood flowed free as water in the sun.
XVIII.
Midst the four thousand of our tribe who held
Glad homes in Seville, never a one was spared,
Some slaughtered at their hearthstones, some expelled
To Moorish slavery. Cunningly ensnared, 140
Baited and trapped were we; their fierce monks yelled
And thundered from our Synagogues, while flared
The Cross above the Ark. Ah, happiest they
Who fell unconquered martyrs on that day!
XIX.
For some (I write it with flushed cheek, bowed head), 145
Given free choice twixt death and shame, chose shame,
Denied the God who visibly had led
Their fathers, pillared in a cloud of flame,
Bathed in baptismal waters, ate the bread
Which is their new Lord's body, took the name 150
Marmnos,
1
 the Accursed, whom equally
Jew, Moor, and Christian hate, despise and flee.
The enforced recipients of baptism who remained in Spain formed a peculiar class,
outwardly Christians, inwardly Jews. They might have been called Jewish-Christians.
They were looked upon with suspicion by the Christian population, and shunned
with a still more intense hatred by the loyal Jews who gave them the name of
Marranos, the accursed. (Lazarus's note, from Graetz, Geschichte derjuden, vol. 8, chap.
4.) This note appears in Poems, 2:256, and in The American Hebrew (23 June 1882):
66-67. See also Graetz, History of the Jews, 4:180.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 223
I
XX.
Even one no less than an Abarbanel
1
Prized miserable length of days, above
155 Integrity of soul. Midst such who fell,
Far be it, however, from my duteous love,
Master, to reckon thee. Thine own lips tell
How fear nor torture thy firm will could move.
How thou midst panic nowise disconcerted,
160 By Thomas of Aquinas wast converted!
XXL
Truly I know no more convincing way
To read so wise an author, than was thine.
When burning Synagogues changed night to day,
And red swords underscored each word and line.
165 That was a light to read by! Who'd gainsay
Authority so clearly stamped divine?
On this side, death and torture, flame and slaughter,
On that, a harmless wafer and clean water.
XXII.
Thou couldst not fear extinction for our race;
170 Though Christian sword and fire from town to town
Flash double-bladed lightning to efface
Israel's image—though we bleed, burn, drown
Through Christendom—'tis but a scanty space.
Still are the Asian hills and plains our own,
175 Still are we lords in Syria, still are free,
Nor doomed to be abolished utterly.
XXIII.
One sole conclusion hence at last I find,
Thou whom ambition, doubt, nor fear could swerve,
1
 Samuel Abravanel, grandfather of the distinguished Isaac ben Judah Abravanel
(1437-1508), the Portugese biblical scholar and advisor to Alfonso V of Portugal and
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. During the persecution of Jews in Spain in 1391, the
elder Abravanel accepted baptism and lived for a short time as a Christian. See Graetz,
History of the Jews, 4:169, 337.
224 EMMA LAZARUS
Perforce hast been persuaded through the mind,
Proved, tested the new dogmas, found them serve 180
Thy spirit's needs, left flesh and sense behind,
Accepted without shrinking or reserve,
The trans-substantial bread and wine, the Christ
At whose shrine thine own kin were sacrificed.
XXIV.
Here then the moment comes when I crave light, 185
All's dark to me. Master, if I be blind,
Thou shalt unseal my lids and bless with sight,
Or groping in the shadows, I shall find
Whether within me or without, dwell night.
Oh cast upon my doubt-bewildered mind 190
One ray from thy clear heaven of sun-bright faith,
Grieving, not wroth, at what thy servant saith.
XXV.
Where are the signs fulfilled whereby all men
Should know the Christ? Where is the wide-winged
peace
Shielding the lamb within the lion's den? 195
The freedom broadening with the wars that cease?
Do foes clasp hands in brotherhood again?
Where is the promised garden of increase,
When like a rose the wilderness should bloom?
Earth is a battlefield and Spain a tomb. 200
XXVI.
Our God of Sabaoth
1
 is an awful God
Of lightnings and of vengeance,—Christians say.
Earth trembled, nations perished at his nod;
His Law has yielded to a milder sway.
Theirs is the God of Love whose feet have trod 205
Our common earth—draw near to him and pray,
Hosts or armies (Hebrew).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 225
1
Meek-faced, dove-eyed, pure-browed, the Lord of life,
Know him and kneel, else at your throat the knife!
XXVII.
This is the God of Love, whose altars reek
210 With human blood, who teaches men to hate;
Torture past words, or sins we may not speak
Wrought by his priests behind the convent-grate.
Are his priests false? or are his doctrines weak
That none obeys him? State at war with state,
215 Church against church—yea, Pope at feud with Pope,
In these tossed seas what anchorage for hope?
XXVIII.
Not only for the sheep without the fold
Is the knife whetted, who refuse to share
Blessings the shepherd wise doth not withhold
220 Even from the least among his flock—but there
Midmost the pale, dissensions manifold,
Lamb flaying lamb, fierce sheep that rend and tear.
Master, if thou to thy prides goal should come,
Where wouldst thou throne—at Avignon or Rome?
1
XXIX.
225 I handle burning questions, good my lord,
Such as may kindle fagots, well I wis.
Your Gospel not denies our older Word,
But in a way completes and betters this.
The Law of Love shall supersede the sword,
230 So runs the promise, but the facts I miss.
Already needs this wretched generation,
A voice divine—a new, third revelation.
1
 This sentence occurs in another Epistle to Paulus by Profiat Duran. (Lazarus's note.)
See Graetz, History of the Jews, 4:189. The reference is to the Great Western Schism
(1378-1417), a period in which there were two rival papacies, one located in Rome,
the other in Avignon.
226 EMMA LAZARUS
XXX.
Two Popes and their adherents fulminate
Ban against ban, and to the nether hell
Condemn each other, while the nations wait 235
Their Christ to thunder forth from Heaven, and tell
Who is his rightful Vicar, reinstate
His throne, the hideous discord to dispel.
Where shall I seek, master, while such things be,
Celestial truth, revealed certainty?
1
 240
XXXI.
Not miracles I doubt, for how dare man,
Chief miracle of life's mystery, say he knows?
How may he closely secret causes scan,
Who learns not whence he comes nor where he goes?
Like one who walks in sleep a doubtful span 245
He gropes through all his days, till Death unclose
His cheated eyes and in one blinding gleam,
Wakes, to discern the substance from the dream.
XXXII.
I say not therefore I deny the birth,
The Virgin's motherhood, the resurrection, 250
Who know not how mine own soul came to earth,
Nor what shall follow death. Man's imperfection
May bound not even in thought the height and girth
Of God's Omnipotence; neath his direction
We may approach his essence, but that He 255
Should dwarf Himself to us—it cannot be!
1
 Verses 29 and 30 are paraphrases from an epistle to Paulus by Chasdai Crescas.
"These are burning questions, from which the fire of the stake may be kindled.
Christianity gives itself out as a new revelation in a certain sense completing and
improving Judaism. But the revelation has so little efficacy, that in the prolonged
schism in the Church, a new divine message is already needed to scatter the danger-
ous errors. Two Popes and their partisans fulminate against each other bulls of
excommunication and condemn each other to profoundest hell. Where is the truth
and certainty of revelation?" (Lazarus's note, from Graetz, Geschichte derjuden, vol. 8,
chap. 4.) This note appears in Poems, 2:257,
 an
d in The American Hebrew (23 June 1882):
67. See also Graetz, History of the Jews, 4:187-88.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 227
XXXIIL
1
The God who balances the clouds, who spread
The sky above us like a molten glass,
The God who shut the sea with doors, who laid
260 The corner-stone of earth, who caused the grass
Spring forth upon the wilderness, and made
The darkness scatter and the night to pass—
That He should clothe Himself with flesh, and move
Midst worms a worm—this, sun, moon, stars disprove.
XXXIV
265 Help me, O thou who wast my boyhood s guide,
I bend my exile-weary feet to thee,
Teach me the indivisible to divide,
Show me how three are one and One is three!
How Christ to save all men was crucified,
270 Yet I and mine are damned eternally.
Instruct me, Sage, why Virtue starves alone,
While falsehood step by step ascends the throne.
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
5 Of that hoary race who dwelt
By the golden Nile divine,
Spake the Pharaohs' tongue and knelt
At the moon-crowned Isis' shrine—
How at reverend Egypt's feet,
10 Pilgrims from all lands would meet!
If the sudden news were known,
That anigh the desert-place
Where once blossomed Babylon,
1
 The Book of Job. (Lazarus's note.)
228 EMMA LAZARUS
Scions of a mighty race
Still survived, of giant build, 15
Huntsmen, warriors, priest and sage,
Whose ancestral fame had filled,
Trumpet-tongued, the earlier age,
How at old Assyria's feet
Pilgrims from all lands would meet! 20
Yet when Egypt's self was young,
And Assyria's bloom unworn,
Ere the mythic Homer sung,
Ere the gods of Greece were born,
Lived the nation of one God, 25
Priests of freedom, sons of Shem,
Never quelled by yoke or rod,
Founders of Jerusalem—
Is there one abides to-day,
Seeker of dead cities, say! 30
Answer, now as then, they are;
Scattered broadcast o'er the lands,
Knit in spirit nigh and far,
With indissoluble bands.
Half the wo rid adores their God, 35
They the living law proclaim,
And their guerdon is—the rod,
Stripes and scourgings, death and shame.
Still on Israel's head forlorn,
Every nation heaps its scorn. 40
THE FEAST OF LIGHTS.
l
Kindle the taper like the steadfast star
Ablaze on evening's forehead o'er the earth,
And add each night a lustre till afar
An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth.
1
 Hanukkah. See note 3, p. 182.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 229
5 Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre,
Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn;
Chant psalms of victory till the heart take fire,
The Maccabean spirit leap new-born.
Remember how from wintry dawn till night,
10 Such songs were sung in Zion, when again
On the high altar flamed the sacred light,
And, purified from every Syrian stain,
The foam-white walls with golden shields were hung,
With crowns and silken spoils, and at the shrine,
15 Stood, midst their conqueror-tribe, five chieftains sprung
From one heroic stock, one seed divine.
Five branches grown from Mattathias' stem,
The Blessed John, the Keen-Eyed Jonathan,
Simon the fair, the Burst-of-Spring, the Gem,
20 Eleazar, Help-of-God; o'er all his clan
Judas the Lion-Prince, the Avenging Rod,
Towered in warrior-beauty, uncrowned king,
Armed with the breastplate and the sword of God,
Whose praise is: "He received the perishing."
1
25 They who had camped within the mountain-pass,
Couched on the rock, and tented neath the sky,
Who saw from Mizpah s heights
2
 the tangled grass
Choke the wide Temple-courts, the altar lie
Disfigured and polluted—who had flung
30 Their faces on the stones, and mourned aloud
And rent their garments, wailing with one tongue,
Crushed as a wind-swept bed of reeds is bowed,—
1
 i Maccabees 3.9.
2
 See note 3,p. 182.
23O EMMA LAZARUS
Even they by one voice fired, one heart of flame,
Though broken reeds, had risen, and were men,
They rushed upon the spoiler and o'ercame, 35
Each arm for freedom had the strength of ten.
Now is their mourning into dancing turned,
Their sackcloth doffed for garments of delight,
Week-long the festive torches shall be burned,
Music and revelry wed day with night. 40
Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm,
The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word.
Where is our Judas? Where our five-branched palm?
Where are the lion-warriors of the Lord?
Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre, 45
Sound the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn,
Chant hymns of victory till the heart take fire,
The Maccabean spirit leap new-born!
LIFE AND ART.
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-soul to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express 5
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, 10
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.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 231
THE NEW EzEKiEL.
1
What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried
By twenty scorching centuries of wrong?
Is this the House of Israel, whose pride
Is as a tale that's told, an ancient song?
5 Are these ignoble relics all that live
Of psalmist, priest and prophet? Can the breath
Of very heaven bid these bones revive,
Open the graves and clothe the ribs of death?
Yea. Prophesy, the Lord hath said. Again
10 Say to the wind, Come forth and breathe afresh,
Even that they may live upon these slain.
And bone to bone shall leap, and flesh to flesh.
The Spirit is not dead, proclaim the word,
Where lay dead bones, a host of armed men stand!
15 I ope your graves, my people, saith the Lord,
And I shall place you living in your land.
CONSOLATION.
Translated from the Hebrew.
2
Oh, were my streaming tears to flow,
According to my grievous woe,
Then foot of man in all his quest,
On no dry spot of earth could rest.
5 But not to Noah s flood alone,
The Covenant's bright pledge was shown,
For likewise to my tears and woe,
Behold once more revealed—the Bow!
3
1
 See Ezekiel 37.
2
 Translation of poem by Al-Harizi (see note i, p. 217), Lazarus's first from a Hebrew
text. See Lazarus, to Philip Cowen, 5 May [1883], in Appendix B. For Hebrew original
and manuscript facsimile of translation, see The American Hebrew (10 Dec. 1887): 74.
3 See Genesis 9.8-17.
232 EMMA LAZARUS
THE NEW COLOSSUS.
x
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
2
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 5
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities
3
 frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, 10
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
1492.4
Thou two-faced year,
5
 Mother of Change and Fate,
Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword,
6
The children of the prophets of the Lord,
Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.
1
 Written in aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund, 1883. (Lazarus s note, which appears in
her manuscript book of poems and in Poems, i: 202.) A committee working to raise
money to build a pedestal for Auguste Bartholdi's Liberty Enlightening the Wbrld, the Statue
of Liberty, asked Lazarus to write a poem for a fund-raising auction. In November 1883,
she wrote this sonnet, which was read at the auction on 3 December. At the official dedi-
cation ceremony on 28 October 1886, the poem was read again. In 1903 Lazarus's poem
was engraved on a plaque and placed in the pedestal. For an early response to this poem,
see James Russell Lowell, to Lazarus, 17 Dec. 1883, in Appendix B.
2
 The Colossus of Rhodes, an enormous bronze statue of the sun god Helios. Its legs
straddled Rhodes harbor before an earthquake destroyed the statue in 224 BCE.
3 Jersey City and New York City.
4 Under an edict issued by Ferdinand and Isabella, the Jews were expelled from Spain in
1492; that same year Christopher Columbus sailed to what would later be called the
Americas. In her manuscript book of poems, Lazarus dates this sonnet December 1883.
5 Reference to Janus, the Roman god of the door. Associated with beginnings (and
endings), he looks both ways at once.
    See Genesis 3.24.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 233
6
5 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.
Then smiling, thou unveiTdst, O two-faced year,
10 A virgin world where doors of sunset part,
Saying, "Ho, all who weary, enter here!
There falls each ancient barrier that the art
Of race or creed or rank devised, to rear
Grim bulwarked hatred between heart and heart!"
1883.
CRITIC AND POET.
An Apologue.
('Poetry must be simple, sensuous or impassioned; this man is
neither simple, sensuous nor impassioned; therefore he is not a
poet.')
1
No man had ever heard a nightingale,
When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred
To study and define—what is a bird,
To classify by rote and book, nor fail
5 To mark its structure and to note the scale
Whereon its song might possibly be heard.
Thus far, no farther;—so he spake the word.
When of a sudden,—hark, the nightingale!
Oh deeper, higher than he could divine
10 That all-unearthly, untaught strain! He saw
1
 On 4 January 1884, Lazarus heard Arnold lecture on Emerson. Arnold later published
the lecture in Discourses in America (1885), where he wrote: "Milton says that poetry
ought to be simple, sensuous, impassioned. Well, Emerson's poetry is seldom either
simple, or sensuous, or impassioned." See Matthew Arnold, Philistinism in England and
America, ed. R.H. Super (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1974), 169. See also Lazarus,
to Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 29 Jan. [1884], in Appendix B.
234 EMMA LAZARUS
The plain, brown warbler, unabashed. 'Not mine'
(He cried) 'the error of this fatal flaw.
No bird is this, it soars beyond my line,
Were it a bird, 'twould answer to my law.'
January 6, 1884.
THE CHOICE.
I saw in dream the spirits unbegot,
Veiled, floating phantoms, lost in twilight space;
For one the hour had struck, he paused; the place
Rang with an awful Voice:
"Soul, choose thy lot!
Two paths are offered; that, in velvet-flower, 5
Slopes easily to every earthly prize.
Follow the multitude and bind thine eyes,
Thou and thy sons' sons shall have peace with power.
This narrow track skirts the abysmal verge,
Here shalt thou stumble, totter, weep and bleed, 10
All men shall hate and hound thee and thy seed,
Thy portion be the wound, the stripe, the scourge.
But in thy hand I place my lamp for light,
Thy blood shall be the witness of my Law,
Choose now for all the ages!"
Then I saw 15
The unveiled spirit, grown divinely bright,
Choose the grim path. He turned, I knew full well
The pale, great martyr-forehead shadowy-curled,
The glowing eyes that had renounced the world,
Disgraced, despised, immortal Israel. 20
THE SUPREME SACRIFICE.
Well-nigh two thousand years hath Israel
Suffered the scorn of man for love of God;
Endured the outlaw's ban, the yoke, the rod,
With perfect patience. Empires rose and fell,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 235
5 Around him Nebo was adored and Bel;
1
Edom was drunk with victory, and trod
On his high places, while the sacred sod
Was desecrated by the infidel.
His faith proved steadfast without breach or flaw,
10 But now the last renouncement is required.
His truth prevails, his God is God, his Law
Is found the wisdom most to be desired.
Not his the glory! He, maligned, misknown,
Bows his meek head, and says, "Thy will be done!"
THE BIRTH OF MAN.
A Legend of the Talmud.
2
When angels visit earth, the messengers
Of God's decree, they come as lightning, wind:
Before the throne, they all are living fire.
There stand four rows of angels—to the right
5 The hosts of Michael, Gabriel's to the left,
Before, the troop of Ariel, and behind,
The ranks of Raphael; all, with one accord,
Chanting the glory of the Everlasting.
Upon the high and holy throne there rests,
10 Invisible, the Majesty of God.
About his brows the crown of mystery
Whereon the sacred letters are engraved
Of the unutterable Name. He grasps
A sceptre of keen fire; the universe
15 Is compassed in His glance; at His right hand
Life stands, and at His left hand standeth Death.
II.
Lo, the divine idea of making man
Had spread abroad among the heavenly hosts;
1
 Nebo and Bel are Babylonian gods. In the Bible Edom, the nation founded by Esau's
descendants, is a frequent enemy of Israel.
2
 See Talmud: Selections, 329-30 (the abridgment and translation of the Talmud that
Lazarus often used). See also Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 1:52-55, 5:69-73.
236 EMMA LAZARUS
And all at once before the immortal throne
Pressed troops of angels and of seraphim, 20
With minds opposed, and contradicting cries:
"Fulfill, great Father, thine exalted thought!
Create and give unto the earth her king!
Cease, cease, Almighty God! create no more!"
And suddenly upon the heavenly sphere 25
Deep silence fell; before the immortal throne
The angel Mercy knelt, and thus he spoke:
"Fulfill, great Father, thine exalted thought!
Create the likeness of thyself on earth.
In this new creature I will breathe the spirit 30
Of a divine compassion; he shall be
Thy fairest image in the universe."
But to his words the angel Peace replied,
With heavy sobs: "My spirit was outspread,
Oh God, on thy creation, and all things 35
Were sweetly bound in gracious harmony.
But man, this strange new being, everywhere
Shall bring confusion, trouble, discord, war."
"Avenger of injustice and of crime,"
Exclaimed the angel Justice," he shall be 40
Subject to me, and peace shall bloom again.
Create, oh Lord, create! ""Father of truth,"
Implored with tears the angel Truth, "Thou bring st
Upon the earth the father of all lies!"
And over the celestial faces gloomed 45
A cloud of grief, and stillness deep prevailed.
Then from the midst of that abyss of light
Whence sprang the eternal throne, these words rang forth:
"Be comforted, my daughter! Thee I send
To be companion unto man on earth." 50
And all the angels cried, lamenting loud:
"Thou robbest heaven of her fairest gem.
Truth! seal of all thy thoughts, Almighty God,
The richest jewel that adorns thy crown."
From the abyss of glory rang the voice: 55
"From heaven to earth, from earth once more to heaven,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 237
Shall Truth, with constant interchange, alight
And soar again, an everlasting link
Between the world and sky."
And man was born.
To R.W.E.
1
As, when a father dies, his children draw
About the empty hearth, their loss to cheat
With uttered praise and love, and oft repeat
His own familiar words with whispered awe,
5 The honored habit of his daily law—
Not for his sake, but theirs, whose feebler feet
Need still his guiding lamp, whose faith, less sweet,
Misses that tempered patience without flaw—
So do we gather 'round thy vacant chair,
10 In thine own elm-roofed, amber-rivered town,
Master and father! For the love we bear,
Not for thy fame s sake, do we weave this crown,
And feel thy presence in the sacred air,
Forbidding us to weep that thou art gone.
BAR KocHBA.
2
Weep, Israel! your tardy meed outpour
Of grateful homage on his fallen head,
1
 This sonnet, written to commemorate the second anniversary of Emerson's death,
appears without title in The Critic and Good Literature (2 Aug. 1884): 55-56.The title
is from Lazarus's manuscript book, where she dates it May 20,1884.
2
 Bar Kokhba (d. 135 CE), Jewish military leader in the revolt (132-35 CE) against
Roman domination of Palestine. The emperor Hadrian wanted to culturally inte-
grate the Jews and the city of Jerusalem into the Roman empire. Fiercely opposed
to this policy of Hellenization, rebels drove the Romans out and captured Jerusalem.
The Roman army soon returned with an overwhelming force that took Jerusalem,
killed Bar Kokhba, and smashed the Jewish resistance. Casualties on both sides were
enormous. The remaining Jewish population of Judea was exiled, and Jews were
prohibited from entering Jerusalem. At the beginning of the revolt, Rabbi Akiva (or
Akiba) gave Simeon Bar Kosba (or Kosiba) the name "Bar Kokhba," which means
"Son of the Star," a symbolic messianic title. See Graetz, History of the Jews, 2:405-23.
See also Lazarus, to Philip Cowen, 7 July 1884, in Schappes, 439-40.
238 EMMA LAZARUS
That never coronal of triumph wore,
Untombed, dishonored, and unchapleted.
If Victory makes the hero, raw Success 5
The stamp of virtue, unremembered
Be then the desperate strife, the storm and stress
Of the last Warrior Jew. But if the man
Who dies for freedom, loving all things less,
Against world-legions, mustering his poor clan; 10
The weak, the wronged, the miserable, to send
Their death-cry's protest through the ages' span—
If such an one be worthy, ye shall lend
Eternal thanks to him, eternal praise.
Nobler the conquered than the conqueror's end! 15
THE 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 5
Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone,
Serenely poised on her world-worshiped throne,
As when she guided once her dove-drawn car,—
But at her feet a pale, death-stricken Jew,
Her life-adorer, sobbed farewell to love. 10
Here Heine wept!
2
 Here still he weeps anew,
Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move
While mourns one ardent heart, one poet-brain,
For vanished Hellas
3
 and Hebraic pain.
1
 Venus de Milo, the famous ancient marble statue of Aphrodite, now located in the
Musee du Louvre, Paris.
2
 See Lazarus's essay "The Poet Heine" (281-88).This poem first appeared at the head
of that essay.
3 Ancient Greece.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 239
GIFTS.
"O World-God, give me Wealth!" the Egyptian cried.
His prayer was granted. High as heaven, behold
Palace and Pyramid; the brimming tide
Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold.
5 Armies of slaves toiled ant-wise at his feet,
World-circling traffic roared through mart and street.
His priests were gods, his spice-balmed kings enshrined,
Set death at naught in rock-ribbed charnels deep.
Seek Pharaoh s race to-day and ye shall find
10 Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep.
"O World-God, give me beauty!" cried the Greek.
His prayer was granted. All the earth became
Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak,
Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame,
15 Peopled the world with imaged grace and light.
The lyre was his, and his the breathing might
Of the immortal marble, his the play
Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue.
Go seek the sunshine-race, ye find to-day
20 A broken column and a lute unstrung.
"O World-God, give me Power!" the Roman cried.
His prayer was granted. The vast world was chained
A captive to the chariot of his pride.
The blood of myriad provinces was drained
25 To feed that fierce, insatiable red heart.
Invulnerably bulwarked every part
With serried legions and with close-meshed Code.
Within, the burrowing worm had gnawed its home.
A roofless ruin stands where once abode
30 The imperial race of everlasting Rome.
"O Godhead, give me Truth!" the Hebrew cried.
His prayer was granted; he became the slave
Of the Idea, a pilgrim far and wide,
24O EMMA LAZARUS
Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged with none to save.
The Pharaohs knew him, and when Greece beheld, 35
His wisdom wore the hoary crown of Eld.
Beauty he hath forsworn and wealth and power.
Seek him to-day, and find in every land.
No fire consumes him, neither floods devour,
Immortal through the lamp within his hand. 40
ADMONITION.
1
Long in the lap of childhood didst thou sleep,
Think how thy youth like chaff did disappear,
Shall life's sweet spring for ever last? look up!
Old age approaches ominously near.
O shake thou off the world, e'en as the bird 5
Shakes off the midnight dew that clogs his wings;
Soar upward! seek deliverance from thy chains
And from the earthly dross that round thee clings.
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.
2
Little Poems in Prose.
I.The Exodus. (August 3, 1492.)3
i. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the
dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless
1
 A poem by Judah Halevi (see note I, p. 207), translated by Lazarus at the request of
Rabbi Gottheil who was preparing Hymns and Anthems, Adapted for Jewish Worship
(New York, 1887). She translated it from the German of Michael Sachs who trans-
lated it from Hebrew. For the Hebrew text of this poem with a facing page English
translation, see Selected Poems ofjehudah Halevi, trans. Nina Salaman, ed. Heinrich
Brody (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1924), 93. For Sach's translation, see
Die Religiose Poesie derjuden in Spanien (1845; New York: Arno, 1980), 104. See also
Lazarus, to Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, 25 Feb. [1877], in Appendix B.
2
 From Psalm 137.1, a figure for exile. See note 2, p. 50.
3 Columbus (who was from Genoa) departed for the Americas on this date. It was also
the day after the officially appointed date for the Jews' departure from Spain. See
Lazarus, "1492" (233-34); and Graetz, History of the Jews, 4:352.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 241
plains and bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines
and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns.
2.The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell,
bows painfully upon his staff. The beautiful young mother,
ivory-pale, well-nigh swoons beneath her burden; in her
large enfolding arms nestles her sleeping babe, round her
knees flock her little ones with bruised and bleeding feet.
"Mother, shall we soon be there?"
3.The youth with Christ-like countenance speaks
comfortably to father and brother, to maiden and wife. In
his breast, his own heart is broken.
4. The halt, the blind, are amid the train. Sturdy pack-
horses laboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the
sick athirst with fever.
5. The panting mules are urged forward with spur and
goad; stuffed are the heavy saddlebags with the wreckage
5 of ruined homes.
6. Hark to the tinkling silver bells that adorn the
tenderly-carried silken scrolls.
1
7. In the fierce noon-glare a lad bears a kindled lamp;
behind its network of bronze the airs of heaven breathe
not upon its faint purple star.
2
8. Noble and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and
obscure, plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in
one routed army of misfortune.
9. Woe to the straggler who falls by the wayside! no
friend shall close his eyes.
lO.They leave behind, the grape, the olive, and the fig;
the vines they planted, the corn they sowed, the garden-
cities of Andalusia and Aragon, Estremadura and La
Mancha, of Granada and Castile; the altar, the hearth, and
10 the grave of their fathers.
ii.The townsman spits at their garments, the shepherd
quits his flock, the peasant his plow, to pelt with curses and
stones; the villager sets on their trail his yelping cur.
1
 The Scroll of the Law, the form of the Torah used in the synagogue.
2
 See note 3, p. 49.
242 EMMA LAZARUS
12. Oh the weary inarch, oh the uptorn roots of home,
oh the blankness of the receding goal!
13. Listen to their lamentation: They that ate dainty food
are desolate in the streets; they that were reared in scarlet embrace
dunghills. They flee away and wander about. Men say among the
nations, they shall no more sojourn there; our end is near, our
days are full, our doom is come.
14. Whither shall they turn? for the West hath cast them
out, and the East refuseth to receive.
15. O bird of the air, whisper to the despairing exiles,
that to-day, to-day, from the many-masted, gayly-bannered
port of Palos, sails the world-unveiling Genoese, to unlock
the golden gates of sunset and bequeath a Continent to
Freedom! 15
11. Treasures.
1. Through cycles of darkness the diamond sleeps in its
coal-black prison.
2. Purely incrusted in its scaly casket, the breath-
tarnished pearl slumbers in mud and ooze.
3. Buried in the bowels of earth, rugged and obscure,
lies the ingot of gold.
4. Long hast thou been buried, O Israel, in the bowels
of earth; long hast thou slumbered beneath the over-
whelming waves; long hast thou slept in the rayless house
of darkness.
5. Rejoice and sing, for only thus couldst thou rightly
guard the golden knowledge, Truth, the delicate pearl and
the adamantine jewel of the Law. 5
III.The Sower.
1. Over a boundless plain went a man, carrying seed.
2. His face was blackened by sun and rugged from
tempest, scarred and distorted by pain. Naked to the loins,
his back was ridged with furrows, his breast was plowed
with stripes.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 243
3. From his hand dropped the fecund seed.
4. And behold, instantly started from the prepared soil a
blade, a sheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching,
cloud-aspiring tree. Its arms touched the ends of the hori-
zon, the heavens were darkened with its shadow.
5. It bare blossoms of gold and blossoms of blood,
fruitage of health and fruitage of poison; birds sang amid
5 its foliage, and a serpent was coiled about its stem.
6. Under its branches a divinely beautiful man,
crowned with thorns, was nailed to a cross.
7. And the tree put forth treacherous boughs to strangle
the Sower; his flesh was bruised and torn, but cunningly
he disentangled the murderous knot and passed to the
eastward.
8. Again there dropped from his hand the fecund seed.
9. And behold, instantly started from the prepared soil a
blade, a sheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching,
cloud-aspiring tree. Crescent shaped like little emerald
moons were the leaves; it bare blossoms of silver and blos-
soms of blood, fruitage of health and fruitage of poison;
birds sang amid its foilage and a serpent was coiled about
its stem.
10. Under its branches a turbaned mighty-limbed
10 Prophet brandished a drawn sword.
11. And behold, this tree likewise puts forth perfidious
arms to strangle the Sower; but cunningly he disentangles
the murderous knot and passes on.
12. Lo, his hands are not empty of grain, the strength of
his arm is not spent.
13.What germ hast thou saved for the future, O mirac-
ulous Husbandman? Tell me, thou Planter of Christhood
and Islam; tell me, thou seed-bearing Israel!
IV. The Test.
i. Daylong I brooded upon the Passion of Israel.
2.1 saw him bound to the wheel, nailed to the cross, cut
off by the sword, burned at the stake, tossed into the seas.
244 EMMA LAZARUS
3. And always the patient, resolute, martyr face arose in
silent rebuke and defiance.
4. A Prophet with four eyes; wide gazed the orbs of the
spirit above the sleeping eyelids of the senses.
5. A Poet, who plucked from his bosom the quivering
heart and fashioned it into a lyre. 5
6. A placid-browed Sage, uplifted from earth in celestial
meditation.
7. These I saw, with princes and people in their train;
the monumental dead and the standard-bearers of the
future.
8. And suddenly I heard a burst of mocking laughter,
and turning, I beheld the shuffling gait, the ignominious
features, the sordid mask of the son of the Ghetto.
V. Currents.
i.Vast oceanic movements, the flux and reflux of
immeasurable tides, oversweep our continent.
2. From the far Caucasian steppes, from the squalid
Ghettos of Europe,
3. From Odessa and Bucharest, from Kief and
Ekaterinoslav,
1
4. Hark to the cry of the exiles of Babylon, the voice of
Rachel mourning for her children, of Israel lamenting for
Zion.
2
5. And lo, like a turbid stream, the long-pent flood
bursts the dykes of oppression and rushes hitherward. 5
6. Unto her ample breast, the generous mother of
nations welcomes them.
7. The herdsman of Canaan and the seed of Jerusalem's
royal shepherd
3
 renew their youth amid the pastoral plains
of Texas and the golden valleys of the Sierras.
1
 The sites of pogroms that precipitated a mass migration of eastern European and
Russian Jews to the United States in the i88os.
2
 See Jeremiah 31.15. For the verse's larger context (the Babylonian exile and the
destruction of Jerusalem), see Jeremiah 27-39.
3 Reference to King David, who was a shepherd.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 245
VI.The Prophet.
1
1. Moses ben Maimon lifting his perpetual lamp over
the path of the perplexed;
2. Hallevi, the honey-tongued poet, wakening amid the
silent ruins of Zion the sleeping lyre of David;
3. Moses, the wise son of Mendel, who made the
Ghetto illustrious;
4. Abarbanel, the counselor of kings;Alcharisi, the
exquisite singer; Ibn Ezra, the perfect old man; Gabirol, the
tragic seer;
5. Heine, the enchanted magician, the heart-broken
5 jester;
6.Yea, and the century-crowned patriarch whose
bounty engirdles the globe;—
2
7. These need no wreath and no trumpet; like perennial
asphodel blossoms, their fame, their glory resounds like the
brazen-throated cornet.
8. But thou—hast thou faith in the fortune of Israel?
Wouldst thou lighten the anguish of Jacob?
9. Then shalt thou take the hand of yonder caftaned
wretch with flowing curls and gold-pierced ears;
lO.Who crawls blinking forth from the loathsome
10 recesses of the Jewry;
11. Nerveless his fingers, puny his frame; haunted by
the bat-like phantoms of superstition is his brain.
12. Thou shalt say to the bigot, "My Brother," and to
the creature of darkness, "My Friend."
13. And thy heart shall spend itself in fountains of love
upon the ignorant, the coarse, and the abject.
14. Then in the obscurity thou shalt hear a rush of
wings, thine eyes shall be bitten with pungent smoke.
1
 This section begins with a catalog of great Jewish writers, thinkers, and scholars:
Maimonides (1135-1204), a North African philosopher and author of Guide for the
Perplexed (ii9o);Judah Halevi (see note I, p. 207); Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86),
German philosopher and translator;Abravanel (see note i,p. 224);Al-Harizi (see note
i, p. 217); ibn Ezra (see note i, p. 212); Gabirol (see note 2, p. 198); and Heine (see
Lazarus's essay "The Poet Heine" [281-88]).
2
 This may be a reference to Abraham. See Genesis 17.
246 EMMA LAZARUS
15. And close against thy quivering lips shall be pressed
the live coal wherewith the Seraphim brand the Prophets.
1
 15
VII. Chrysalis.
1. Long, long has the Orient-Jew spun around his help-
lessness the cunningly enmeshed web of Talmud and
Kabbala.
2. Imprisoned in dark corners of misery and oppres-
sion, closely he drew about him the dust-gray filaments,
soft as silk and stubborn as steel, until he lay death-stiff-
ened in mummied seclusion.
3. And the world has named him an ugly worm, shun-
ning the blessed daylight.
4. But when the emancipating springtide breathes
wholesome, quickening airs, when the Sun of Love shines
out with cordial fires, lo, the Soul of Israel bursts her
cobweb sheath, and flies forth attired in the winged beauty
of immortality.
A MASQUE OF VENICE .
(A Dream.)
Not a stain,
In the sun-brimmed sapphire cup that is the sky—
Not a ripple on the black translucent lane
Of the palace-walled lagoon.
Not a cry 5
As the gondoliers with velvet oar glide by,
Through the golden afternoon.
From this height
Where the carved, age-yellowed balcony o'er-juts
Yonder liquid, marble pavement, see the light 10
Shimmer soft beneath the bridge
That abuts
1
 See Isaiah 6.1-7.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 247
On a labyrinth of water-ways and shuts
Half their sky off with its ridge.
15 We shall mark
All the pageant from this ivory porch of ours,
Masques and jesters, mimes and minstrels, while we hark
To their music as they fare.
Scent their flowers
20 Flung from boat to boat in rainbow radiant showers
Through the laughter-ringing air.
See! they come,
Like a flock of serpent-throated black-plumed swans,
With the mandoline, the viol, and the drum,
25 Gems afire on arms ungloved,
Fluttering fans,
Floating mantles like a great moth's streaky vans
Such as Veronese loved.
But behold
30 In their midst a white unruffled swan appear.
One strange barge that snowy tapestries enfold,
White its tasseled, silver prow.
Who is here?
Prince of Love in masquerade or Prince of Fear,
35 Clad in glittering silken snow?
Cheek and chin
Where the mask's edge stops are of the hoar frosts' hue,
And no eye-beams seem to sparkle from within
Where the hollow rings have place.
40 Yon gay crew
Seem to fly him, he seems ever to pursue.
'Tis our sport to watch the race.
At his side
Stands the goldenest of beauties; from her glance,
45 From her forehead, shines the splendor of a bride,
248 EMMA LAZARUS
And her feet seem shod with wings
To entrance
For she leaps into a wild and rhythmic dance,
Like Salome at the King's.
'Tis his aim 50
Just to hold, to clasp her once against his breast,
Hers to flee him, to elude him in the game.
Ah, she fears him overmuch!
Is it jest,—
Is it earnest? a strange riddle lurks half-guessed 55
In her horror of his touch.
For each time
That his snow-white fingers reach her, fades some ray
From the glory of her beauty in its prime;
And the knowledge grows upon us that the dance 60
Is no play
'Twixt the pale, mysterious lover and the fay—
But the whirl of fate and chance.
Where the tide
Of the broad lagoon sinks plumb into the sea, 65
There the mystic gondolier hath won his bride.
Hark, one helpless, stifled scream!
Must it be?
Mimes and minstrels, flowers and music, where are ye?
Was all Venice such a dream? 70
May, 1886.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 249
Selected Essays
Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism.
The spontaneous action of the prominent citizens of London and
New York, without distinction of creed, in protest against the
Russian atrocities committed upon the Jews, happily renders
unnecessary any denunciation on the part of the Jewess. In the April
number of THE CENTURY Mme. Ragozin set forth the "Russian
side" of the question, which appears to her sufficient explanation
of a state of affairs characterized by the London "Times" as "a scene
of horrors that have hitherto only been perpetrated in mediaeval
days during times of war."
1
 Murder, rape, arson, one hundred thou-
sand families reduced to homeless beggary, and the destruction of
eighty million dollars' worth of property,—such, in fewest words,
are the acts for which an excuse is sought. [...]
Mme. Ragozin tells us that "in all cases Jewish riots begin spon-
taneously"! In other words, we are to accept them as natural
phenomena, like volcanic eruptions or earthquakes, for which only
the inscrutable laws of Providence are responsible. According to
her, race-animosity or religious intolerance has never been at work
in connection with them, and she continues, with truly feminine
logic: "The difference between the Middle Ages and now, apart
from the mild form of the recent paroxysms consequent on the
general softening of men's natures, is chiefly this: then, religious
feeling was actively mixed up with economical grievances, while
now it is totally absent, and never could this mediaeval specter be
dragged forth to the light of our very sober, unfanatical age. Let
us once and forever drop this sentimental Liberal slang, invented
by the Liberal press of Germany, which is controlled by emanci-
pated Jews "To a Russian mind and heart, the recent paroxysms
may seem to have assumed a very mild form indeed, "consequent
on the general softening," etc. To an American, they do not appear
in such a rosy light. Here is the picture the Hon.WM. Evarts draws
1
 See "The Persecution of the Jews in Russia," The Times, in Appendix D. Quotations
from Ragozin are from "Russian Jews and Gentiles," also in Appendix D.
250 EMMA LAZARUS
of them—not from accounts of German Hebrews, but of English
journals, such as the London "Times," which have sent a thrill of
horror through all civilized Christendom. "These persecutions,
these oppressions, these cruelties, these outrages, have taken every
form of atrocity in the experience of mankind, or which the
resources of the human tongue can describe. Men have been
cruelly murdered, women brutally outraged, children dashed to
pieces, or burnt alive in their homes," etc., etc.
1
 Is this what Mme.
Ragozin calls the "sentimental Liberal slang of a Hebrew journal-
ist, inflamed by a mistaken national zeal"?
2
[...]The Russian persecution of the Jews, of which we are only
now receiving the horrible details, has been going on for fully
three years.The outbreak at lelizavetgrad, which furnishes Mme.
Ragozin with a "convenient introduction," was by no means the
beginning of the trouble. In March, 1879, nine Jews were brought
up for trial in the Caucasus, on the charge of having slain a
Christian child and tapped its blood for Passover; and the same
hideous fiction, the identical "mediaeval specter," was revived
simultaneously in several districts, invariably leading to riot,
pillage, and murder. The cold-blooded tone in which Mme.
Ragozin relates "the disturbance" at lelizavetgrad enables us to
realize, as we could not otherwise have done, the spirit in which
such outrages are perpetrated. "The mob behaved with remark-
able coolness and discrimination." What did they do? Why, they
simply sacked, gutted, and ruthlessly destroyed the homes of
hundreds of innocent people, made a bonfire of their effects, tore
up like waste paper bank-notes to the amount of thousands of
rubles, offered in ransom by the wretched victims, and not being
able to resist their only weakness, they drank themselves into a
state of hopeless intoxication, and were in some cases almost
drowned in the liquor that had bestialized them. Is not this a
pleasant picture of humanity? That the riot was prompted by no
I
2
Former Secretary of State William H. Evarts delivered these remarks at a meeting in
Chickering Hall on i February 1882. See "The Hebrews in Russia," The New-York
Times (2 Feb. 1882): 8.
How tenderly soft must be the natures of men who, in one case authentically
reported in all the leading journals, poured kerosene oil over a human being and set
it on fire! (Lazarus's note.)
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 251
love of gain is proved in Mme. Ragozin s eyes by the fact that the
rioters retained nothing, and their object was simply to despoil
and cripple, not to enrich themselves. Some simpletons who came
in from the country, and took possession by the wagon-load of
the valuables piled up in the market-place, actually did not know
they were committing a blamable act! Sancta simplicitas! what
precious innocents these Russians must be! Mme. Ragozin is
obliged to confess that such extenuation, however, cannot be
admitted of the conduct of some "well-dressed women in
carriages," who carried off jewels which they were afterward
obliged by the officers of the law to relinquish. Of course, the
consideration that the law was bound to interfere, at some time
or other, to protect even Jewish subjects had no connection what-
ever with the "extraordinary moderation" the rioters evinced in
destroying, rather than retaining, their spoils! No lives were lost,
owing to the "prudence" of the Jews. The poor creatures at bay
shut themselves up in their houses, and only when they were
occasionally so foolish as to fire a pistol in defense of their hearths
and homes did this "good-natured mob" show "manifest signs of
irritation." "Hebrew lawyers and physicians were not molested,
they being considered useful members of society"! At Odessa,
Kiev, and Warsaw, Mme. Ragozin cannot say as much for her
countrymen. She is obliged to confess that blood was shed, and
even, by a lamentable mistake, some innocent Christians were
sacrificed who happened to be passing through the streets.
Mme. Ragozin, in her account of the outrages, so far from
exculpating her compatriots, has taken from them the one human
excuse (not justification) which even a mob may plead in self-
defense—the influence of unbridled passion. She simply reduces
them to the level of fiends, as calculating and cunning as they are
merciless. But it were an insult to our readers to fancy that any
extenuation, however plausible, of such horrors could have a
moment's weight with them. Were Mme. Ragozin's [...] state-
ments ten times true, rather than the stale and flimsy libels which
they are, they would bear no relation whatever to the deeds she
attempts to explain. Mr. Evarts has put the question upon the only
ground which Americans need consider or act upon: "It is not
that it is the oppression of Jews by Russians—it is that it is the
252 EMMA LAZARUS
oppression of men and women by men and women: and we are
men and women!"
1
Emerson's Personality.
The death of Emerson rounds into a perfect orb one of those radi-
ant lives scattered at wide intervals through history, which become
fixed stars of humanity. A youth of purest, fiery aspiration, a
manhood devoted to the eloquent exposition in word and act of
moral truths, an old age of serene benevolence—in his case the
traditional fourscore years allotted to our kind were literally passed
upon the heights, in daily familiarity with ideas and emotions
which are generally associated only with moments of exaltation.
His uncompromising devotion to Truth never hardened into
dogmatism, his audacious rejection of all formalism never soured
into intolerance, his hatred of sham never degenerated into a lip-
protest and a literary trick, his inflexible moral purpose went hand
in hand with unbound charity. In him the intellectual keenness
and profundity of a philosopher, and the imagination of a poet,
were combined with that child-like simplicity and almost divine
humility which made him the idol of his fellow-townsmen and
the easily accessible friend of the ignorant and the poor. No
discrepancy exists between his written words and the record of his
life. He fought his battle against error and vice, not with the usual
weapons of denunciation and invective, but by proclaiming in
speech and deed the beauty of truth and virtue. He has founded
no school, he has formulated no theory, he has abstained from
uttering a single dogma, and yet his moral and intellectual influ-
ence has made itself felt as an active and growing power for high-
est good over the whole breadth of the continent. It is not my
purpose to criticise his literary achievement, nor to estimate his
value as poet and essayist; I shall simply endeavor to indicate,
however inadequately, the genius of his personality.
[...]His manner toward strangers, while extremely simple, was
marked by an exquisite suavity and dignity which peremptorily,
albeit tacitly, prohibited undue familiarity of conventional
1
 See note i,p. 251.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 253
compliment. Sought after as he was, particularly during recent
years, by literary novices who saluted him as master, and
pestered, like all prominent persons, by visits and letters from
the ordinary notoriety-mongers, he found no occasion to resort
to inveterate exclusiveness or repelling harshness. He seemed
indeed to hit upon the happy medium between that amiable
weakness which has made the approval of some elderly poets
considered equivalent to a "brevet of mediocrity,"
1
 and that
impenetrable self-absorption which on the other hand shuts out
many great minds in advancing age from sympathy with a rising
generation. He never acknowledged the receipt of works sent
to him by authors, unless he could offer them encouragement,
preferring to disappoint them by his silence rather than by his
dispraise. Let me not be understood as implying that his liter-
ary judgment was infallible. The strong religious bias of his
nature necessarily developed in him certain idiosyncrasies of
taste and opinion. For him, Shelley and Poe were distinctly not
poets; he had little or no acquaintance with Heine, and I am
inclined to think, though of this I have no positive knowledge,
that Swinburne's name was similarly absent from his list of
singers. On the other hand, in defiance of all aesthetic canons,
very inferior as well as obscure writers might be exalted by him
to a dizzy eminence, almost lifted into immortality, by one of
his golden sentences, simply because such a writer had struck
or tried to strike that note of moral aspiration with which every
chord of Emerson's great heart throbbed in unison. And his
praise, when he bestowed it, was royal, almost overpowering the
recipient by its poetic hyperbole. His friends and correspondents
had to make liberal allowance for this splendor of enthusiasm
which led him to magnify the merits of others, and for his pecu-
liar eloquence, which adorned them with ideal loveliness, and
which flowed as freely in his familiar letters and his serious
conversation as in his books and lectures. Within the sharply
defined limits fixed by his temperament, he was one of the most
searching, discriminating, fresh, and delicate of critics. With his
I
It was said of Goethe that his praise was a "brevet of mediocrity." See, for example,
"Modern Italian Poets," North American Review (April 1867): 317.
254 EMMA LAZARUS
penetrating vision and glowing imagination, he gave us new
insight into the genius of Plato, Plutarch, Shakspere, Milton,
Goethe, Burns, and many others concerning whom the final
word seemed long since uttered. He invariably lifted us up to a
higher point of observation of the most familiar objects. And in
estimating the worth of a new production, his clear judgment
(always within the above-mentioned limitations) seemed little
less than oracular. On one occasion, only a few years ago, a
friend consulted him for advice in regard to the poems of a then
unknown writer, who has since won high recognition. The
manuscript was read to him in the presence of two or three
persons of culture and intelligence; the poems were crude,
rugged, and strongly individual. So strange and uncouth did they
seem that, when the reader ceased, no one else present had been
able to form the vaguest opinion as to their artistic value; but
Mr. Emerson himself, without pause or hesitancy, gave utter-
ance to a criticism so incisive and comprehensive as to supply
in the briefest compass all the advice and encouragement which
the young poet needed at the time. "No discouragement must
damp his ardor," concluded Mr. Emerson, "no rebuff be suffi-
cient to quell this impulse which urges him to write. A single
voice in his favor should be enough to support him till he attain
the mastery of style and taste which shall complete and perfect
his gift. Indeed, a single voice is more than I had myself as a
beginner," he added with his wise, subtle smile. "My friends used
to laugh at my poetry, and tell me I was no poet."
Rigorously as he insisted upon the moral element in art, he
was also a passionate admirer of beauty of form. He delighted in
that unsurpassable master of form, Petrarch, and set a very high
value upon the technical finish of Tennyson, "some of whose
single words," he said, "were poems in themselves." Careful to
fastidiousness in his own choice of words, he was a severe arbiter,
and could not endure a feeble or inadequate epithet. His poems
have been censured for their formlessness, but their peculiarities
of structure arise in no instance from negligence, but from an
essential lack of lyric spontaneity and an over-weight of thought.
Indeed, Emerson, as is evinced by his indifference to Shelley,
remained ever deaf to pure lyrism; the frank sensuousness of its
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 255
appeal to the ear rather than to the soul repelled this austere spirit.
Nor, even when it addressed the soul through this medium: music
was to him a sealed volume. And yet, nowhere in his published
works do I find a more eloquent description of the poet's prerog-
ative than in the following words, which I am fortunately enabled
to quote from a private letter, wherein he uses the musician's
symbols:"! observe that my poet gains in skill as the poems multi-
ply, and may at last confidently say, I have mastered the obstruc-
tions, I have learned the rules, and now every new thought and
new emotion shall make the keys eloquent to my own and to
every gentle ear. Few know what treasure that conquest brings,
what independence and royalty. Grief, passion, disaster are only
materials of art, and I see a light under the feet of Fate herself." I
take the liberty of enriching my page with yet one more quota-
tion from a letter written by Mr. Emerson: "Books are a safe
ground and a long one, but still introductory only, for what we
really seek is ever comparison of experiences—to know if you
have found therein what alone I prize, or, still better, if you have
found what I have never found, and yet is admirable to me also.
Books so tyrannize over our solitude that we like to revenge
ourselves by making them very secondary, and merely conven-
ient as hints and counters in conversation.Yes, and I hold that we
have never reached their best use until our own thought rises to
such a pitch that we cannot afford to read much. I own this lofti-
ness is rare, and we must long be thankful to our silent friends
before the day comes when we can honestly dismiss them."
1
These brief extracts, selected almost at random, sufficiently
prove, by their noble characteristic force of expression and nobil-
ity of tone, what a treasure-mine will be opened to the world if
Mr. Emerson's correspondence be published.
I have never met with any allusion in print to Emerson's gift
of elocution, and yet no one who heard him read a stanza of
poetry was likely to forget it. He indulged in no elocutionary
tricks, no studied intonations, but his voice took on an added
sonority, the verse seemed to flow from his lips with a mingled
force and sweetness which thrilled through the listener s every
1
 See Rusk, 3, 7.
256 EMMA LAZARUS
fiber. It was my good fortune to hear him read one evening Mr.
Stedman s ballad of"Ossawatomie Brown,"
1
 which was an espe-
cial favorite of his. So powerful was the impression created by
the subdued organ-tones, the majesty of his delivery, and the
heroic ring with which he narrated the stirring tale and chanted
the refrain, that I confess to having been then and since utterly
unable to form a critical estimate of the poem itself. Whether it
be one of the noblest lays ever sung by man, or a modest and
unpretentious ballad, I leave it for unbiased critics to determine;
for my part, I am glad to give it the full credit of the magical
effect produced by its adequate interpretation.
Of late years, the pretty little village of Concord became, as
the home of Emerson, the Mecca of many a reverent pilgrim
from all parts of America and even of the Old World. To how
many thousand youthful hearts had not his word been the
beacon—nay more, the guiding star—that led them safely
through periods of mental storm and struggle! For the privilege
of pressing his hand, of looking into his eyes, men would travel
over leagues of land and sea. And when they came from London
or San Francisco, from Berlin or St. Petersburg, what did they
find? In a modest home, looking out upon orchard and garden,
in the midst of wholesome, natural influences, simple, domestic,
obedient to every moral law, they saw him whose
"soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart,"
and yet
"The lowliest duties on herself did lay"
2
The closer one drew to that fount of wisdom and goodness, the
clearer and brighter did it show. Those who only knew him
through his books and appreciated his intellectual power, were
1
 Edmund Clarence Stedman, "How Old Brown Took Harper's Ferry," Poems, Lyrical
and Idyllic (New York, 1860).
2
 William Wordsworth, "London, 1802" ["Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour"]
(1807), lines 9 and 14.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 257
prone to think of him as "a man forbid,"
1
 wrapt in philosophic
musings, and formidable of access. The first glance at his benev-
olent face, which, as Hawthorne said, wore "a sunbeam in it,"
2
sufficed to set the shyest at their ease. Nothing but falsehood,
flippancy, and affectation need have felt abashed in his presence;
for his courtesy, gentleness, simplicity, and boundless hospitality
made "nothing that was human alien to his sympathy."
3
Amidst the turmoil and greed of our modern life, this radiant
spirit stood erect and shining as a shaft of light shot from the
zenith. All his life long he had insisted upon the infinite force of
personality, and he himself proved the living embodiment of his
theory. With his lofty idealism, he individually out-weighed the
contrary evidence of whole townsfull of his fellow-countrymen
given up to "the toss and pallor of years of money-making."
4
Had he not the right to say: "In literature, as in life, I believe that
the units, or atoms, outvalue the masses"? Let us be thankful that
he was not, as some people complain, a man of action. America
has never been, and is not likely to be in future, at a loss for men
of practical energy, of prompt and decisive deed. But Emerson
alone, even if none other comparable to him shall arise again, has
conferred upon her the right to smile at the reproach of being
absorbed in a rank materialism. Nor is it too much to say that he
was the inspirer and sustainer of countless heroes of some of the
bravest deeds in our history.
He is the splendid antithesis of all that is mean and blame-
worthy in our politics and pursuits, for he also is the legitimate
outcome of American institutions, and affords an eternal refuta-
tion of the fallacy that democracy is fatal to the production and
nurture of the highest chivalry, philosophy, and virtue.
1
 Macbeth 1.3.21.
2
 See Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife, 2 vols. (Boston, 1885), 1:245.
3 Terence, Heauton Timoroumenos [The Self- Tormentor], I. i .25.
4 Walt Whitman, "Preface, 1855, to first issue of Leaves of Grass" Prose Works 1892, ed.
Floyd Stovall, 2 vols. (New York: New York UP, 1963-64), 2:452.
258 EMMA LAZARUS
An Epistle to the Hebrews.
V [On ignorance about Jewish literature and culture]
The ignorance which prevails, with few and notable exceptions,
among the majority of Christians in regard to the history and
customs of the Jews, is rendered once more conspicuous by some
of the Jewish articles in the current English periodicals. In order
to dogmatize about the principles of Judaism and the tendencies
of Jewish literature or history, even a superficial acquaintance with
the subject is not deemed necessary.Thus we see as gifted a writer
and as independent a thinker as Miss Frances Power Cobbe, in
the Contemporary for November, basing her argument in favor of
her own idea of reformed Judaism on emphatic statements which
have not the slightest foundation in fact. She says: "If the Jews had
possessed those more ardent religious affections and aspirations
which it is the glory of Christianity to inspire in the hearts of her
saints,.... we must have had a Jewish Thomas a Kempis, a Jewish
St. Theresa, a Jewish Tauler, Fenelon, Taylor, Wesley."
1
 If Miss
Cobbe had looked into Rabbinical literature before passing judg-
ment upon its deficiencies, she would have found in Ibn Gabirol
a poet whose hymns ring in harmony with the Psalms and the
prophesies of old, whose philosophy contained in embryo that
later philosophy of Spinoza which has given tone and direction
to all modern metaphysical speculation. She would have found in
Judah Halevi and Moses ben Ezra poets whose hymns put to
shame the finest lyrics of the Christian Church, whose prose
sermons and prayers glow with a sublime eloquence which shines
with undiminished lustre beside the noblest utterances of Fenelon
or of Jeremy Taylor.
2
 It is true she incidentally speaks in a foot-
note of the "magnificent service" for the Day of Atonement and
of the "noble prayers" to be found in other parts of the liturgy
which is throughout "majestic," but she does not seem to connect
i
2
Frances Power Cobbe, "Progressive Judaism," The Contemporary Review (Nov. 1882):
758.JohannTauler (1300-1361) was a Dominican priest and one of the Rhineland
mystics.
For more on Gabirol, Judah Halevi, and ibn Ezra, see note 2, p. 198, note i, p. 207,
and note i,p. 212.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 259
this evidence with the existence of Jewish sacred authors.
1
Again, she earnestly admonishes the Jews to borrow from their
Christian neighbors that tender solicitude for dumb animals which
she fancies is one of the special "discoveries" of her own creed.
2
The fact that the claims of animals upon our justice and compas-
sion are recommended to us in several touching exhortations of
the Old Testament, and are never once alluded to in the New
Testament, makes her advice somewhat superfluous. The Talmud
says: "No one should sit down to his own meals until seeing that
all the animals dependent upon his care are provided for."
3
 [...]
I have signalized a few of the more glaring errors of fact of Miss
Cobbe s paper, not with the futile purpose of convincing the author
herself, but for the sake of emphasizing two important points. The
first is the already mentioned ignorance against whose conse-
quences we must ourselves be continually on our guard. Miss
Cobbe writes in no hostile spirit, but seems for the most part
animated with sincere reverence for certain phases of Jewish
thought, and yet even she does not hesitate to express a critical
opinion upon a rich and splendid literature whose masters are
evidently known to her only by name. Perhaps she would accuse
us on this, as on so many other points, of excessive egotism and
"tribalism"
4
 in keeping these intellectual treasures to ourselves,
regardless of the fact that, like the truths of the Jewish religion, they
are open to all who seek them. It is not our fault that Gabirol,
Halevi,Ben Ezra,Alcharisi
5
 and Maimonides are either strange or
unfamiliar names or, worse still, absolutely unheard in the ears of
Christians. They are neither inaccessible nor remote; all who take
the pains to study the language in which they wrote, can drink at
the source of this freely-flowing fountain of beauty; and for ordi-
nary readers many of the poems have been translated into modern
European tongues. But when Chinese critics ignorant of English
1
 Cobbe, 757.
2
 Cobbe, 760.
3 The Talmud: Selections, 246 (the Talmud Lazarus used). See also Deuteronomy 11.15;
Berakoth 4oa.
4 Lazarus and Cobbe are both responding to Claude Montefiore's "Is Judaism a Tribal
Religion?" The Contemporary Review (Sept. 1882): 361-82. See also Lazarus, "An
Epistle to the Hebrews. II," The American Hebrew (10 Nov. 1882): 151.
^ For more on Al-Harizi, see note I,p. 217.
260 EMMA LAZARUS
complain of the absence of poetic genius among the British, or,
unfamiliar with Italian, express astonishment at the lack of epic
poems and sonnets among the Italians, we may have an analogy
with current opinions upon Hebrew genius and achievements.
This absurdity reached its climax in a remark that was recently
made concerning the present writer, who was sincerely compas-
sionated, by a Christian lady of Boston reputed to possess a high
degree of culture, for the misfortune of being born with literary
tastes and at the same time a Jewess, because "we all know that Jews
have no literature!"To whom this well-informed lady ascribed the
authorship of the Bible remains as yet a mystery.
The second point on which I desire to insist is that our own
people in default of sufficient acquaintance with the well-springs
of our national life and literature are apt to be misled by the random
assertions of our Gentile critics, and are often only too apt to acqui-
esce in their fallacious statements. [...] Our adversaries are perpe-
tually throwing dust in our eyes with the accusations of materialism
and tribalism, and we, in our pitiable endeavors to conform to the
required standard, plead guilty and fall into the trap they set. [...]
XII
1
 [On the need of Eastern European Jews and the duty of
American Jews]
The Republic, a noble vessel, splendidly equipped, bearing valuable
treasure from the East, was wrecked in a terrific tempest upon an
unnavigable sea. Even such of the passengers as succeeded in
betaking themselves to the boats, were mostly swallowed up in the
whirlpool caused by the sinking ship. The heroic captain, officers
and crew perished to a man. And yet, as by miracle, a handful of
survivors escaped the accumulated horrors of the hour. Clinging
to an open raft, exposed to wind, wave and storm, a few wretched
waifs, torn from all who made life dear, were actually saved. After
enduring incredible hardships and tossing at the mercy of the sea,
through a weary length of days, they finally reached a peaceful
island, inhabited by a free and kindly people who received them
with humane hospitality. But when they had fully recovered from
1
 When first published in January 1883, this "Epistle" was mistakenly numbered "XIII."
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 26l
their protracted sufferings, and had even regained amidst their new
surroundings, a fair degree of worldly prosperity, tidings reached
them concerning certain of their former fellow-passengers, that
filled them with mingled distress and joy. To their surprise, others
also had survived the wreck, including several of their own near
kindred, but these had been cast by the cruel waves upon as cruel
shores; they had fallen among savages without respect for misfor-
tune or virtue, who had first robbed them of the treasure they had
preserved, and then enslaved them in the most degrading servi-
tude. Can it be asked what was the duty of the more fortunate
survivors? Hugging themselves in their prosperity, were they to
abandon their brethren to the miserable fate they had themselves
so providentially escaped? The question answers itself in the name
of a common humanity, of our common brotherhood. Need I add
in explanation that the good ship the "Republic," foundered upon
the reefs of the Roman Empire and was sucked in the vortex of
the pagan dominion, and that the name of the gallant captain who
perished at his post was seventeen hundred and fifty years ago, was
Bar-Kocheba, the last Jewish warrior?
1
Yes, we have not only survived the unparalleled vicissitudes to
which we have been exposed, but on this remote continent, where
so many storm-tost European outcasts have found freedom and
peace, we have prospered to such a degree as almost to forget the
terrors of the tempest. But a wail of lamentation reaches us from
distant countries, and to our grief and amazement we hear that
other homeless and despoiled survivors of that wreck in which we
suffered are subjected to renewed misery at the hands of power-
ful oppressors. Shall we remain deaf to their cry, or heeding the
unanimous voice of friend and foe in counsel or in menace, shall
we not rather exert ourselves to render feasible the only remedy
applicable to the evil? A home for the homeless, a goal for the
wanderer, an asylum for the persecuted, a nation for the dena-
tionalized. Such is the need of our generation; and whether it be
voiced in the hissing denunciations of Anti-Semitism, in the
enthusiasm of helpful Christian advocates, or in the piteous appeal
from Hungary and Galicia, from Bessarabia and Warsaw, from
1
 See note 2, p. 238.
262 EMMA LAZARUS
Berlin and Dresden, the call is too distinct for misconstruction, and
too loud to remain ignored and unanswered.
"The vision is there—it will be fulfilled," said George Eliot.
1
The Jews of America do not sufficiently consider that whether they
offer or refuse cooperation in the glorious scheme of repatriation
gradually assuming definite proportions before the eyes of a scep-
tical world, that scheme will nevertheless be promoted and real-
ized. It is in our power to give immense help and impetus to the
movement: it is not in our power to stem and arrest the irresistible
current.We may advance or retard it,—we cannot prevent it.There
is a general and deeply-rooted feeling among American Jews, that
the question does not touch us.We have acquired here all the priv-
ileges, both civil and religious, necessary to free development; this
soil, these liberal institutions are our own, these men and women
who surround us, whatever temple they may kneel in, are bound
to us by the closest ties of common nationality. These impressions
are founded upon fact, and I would be the last one to wish that
they were otherwise. What then have we to do with the landless,
denationalized Poles, Hungarians and Prussians, unfamiliar with our
language, our customs and our material interests? By exerting
ourselves in their behalf, and assuming the responsibility of their
misfortunes, we can only compromise in the eyes of our fellow-
citizens our own loyalty to the flag that ensures us against similar
calamities. These are the objections urged by a narrow selfishness
and a short-sighted materialism; they take no account of the fact
that a crisis has arrived in Jewish history, presenting for millions of
Jews the sharp alternative of extinction or separation. Fortunately
for us, we are not among these millions, but we have with them
the one great bond in common—that we too have stood upon the
sinking ship. We know what it means to have been exposed to the
tossings of wave and tempest, to have been cast by fate upon a shore
other than our own, which by friendly chance has proved a kind
and hospitable refuge. Shall we repudiate and withhold our hand
from those who have found a less happy termination to our
common misfortune? If we are no longer called upon to suffer for
our principles, yet we have not ceased to maintain those principles,
1
 See Eliot, from Daniel Deronda, in Appendix D.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 263
and through them we are closely related to these martyrs and
outcasts.
It will be a lasting blot upon American Judaism—nay, upon pros-
perous Judaism of whatever nationality—if we do not come forward
now with encouragement for the disheartened and help for the
helpless, or if we neglect this opportunity to dignify our race and
our name by vigorous, united and disinterested action. To fail in
such an attempt is no disgrace—the disgrace is in not undertaking
it. Our own position of security places any efforts we make in this
direction beyond the imputation of personal or unworthy motives.
Our comparative remoteness from the scene of agitation enables
us to judge oppressor and oppressed almost with the calmness of
posterity. Our national American unconcern in the complicated
entanglements of European politics gives us a peculiar clearness of
vision and coolness of head wherewith to measure the chances and
advantages of international alliances. We possess the double
cosmopolitanism of the American and the Jew. We see the leashed
and greedy hounds of European power straining at their checks,
ready to pounce upon the tempting morsel of Egyptian supremacy,
or struggling to be freed for the chase and to be "in at the death"
of the Ottoman Empire.
1
 We have only to watch and wait and to
put ourselves in readiness for action upon an emergency. [...]
The Jewish Problem.
2
The Jewish problem is as old as history, and assumes in each age a
new form. The life or death of millions of human beings hangs
1
 The British occupation of Egypt began in September 1882. Although the Ottoman
Empire managed to hold together until just after World War I, its territory and power
were declining throughout the nineteenth century. In 1878, according to the terms
of the Treaty of San Stefano, the Empire had relinquished a number of European
possessions.
2
 For my brief review of the history of the Jews from the third century before the
Christian Era to their emancipation during the French Revolution, I beg to acknowl-
edge my indebtedness to a pamphlet written by a German Christian, entitled "A
Vindication of the Jews" by Dr. C.L. Beck, published in Leipzig, 1881, from which I
have freely quoted. (Lazarus's note.)
Most of the information and quotations in this essay are from: C.L. Beck, Eine
Rechtfertigung derjuden und Wahre Lb'sung derjudenfmge (Leipzig, 1881); Graetz, Geschichte
derjuden; and Henry Hart Milman, The History of the Jews, 3 vols. (London, 1829).
264 EMMA LAZARUS
upon its solution; its agitation revives the fiercest passions for good
and for evil that inflame the human breast. From the era when the
monotheistic, Semitic slaves of the Pharaohs made themselves
hated and feared by their polytheistic masters, till to-day when the
monstrous giants Labor and Capital are arming for a supreme
conflict, the Jewish question has been inextricably bound up with
the deepest and gravest questions that convulse society. Religious
intolerance and race-antipathy are giving place to an equally bitter
and dangerous social enmity.This scattered band of Israelites, always
in the minority, always in the attitude of protestants against the
dominant creed, against society as it is, seem fated to excite the
antagonism of their fellow-countrymen. [...]
Before attempting to reach a conclusive estimate of their
actual character and situation, it is necessary to review briefly
their history since the Scriptural age, where ordinary readers are
content to close it. It is a mistake to suppose that the first disper-
sion of the Jews dates from the destruction of Jerusalem. Several
centuries before the birth of Jesus, finding their little Fatherland
too narrow for them, they planted colonies abroad, which spread
the fame of Jewish culture and energy over all the civilized
world of the day. These Jews were no usurers and chafferers.
Every conceivable trade and occupation flourished among
them. Of these, the lowest and most despised were those of the
camel and ass-drivers, the scavenger, the sailor, the shepherd, and
the petty shop-keeper. Usury and the taking of interest were
strictly prohibited. Agriculture, cattle-raising, and commerce
formed their chief occupations in the valley of the Euphrates.
Nearda and Nisibis, which were natural strongholds, were the
principal seats of the eastern settlement. On the opposite side
of the river, Palmyra, on the caravan road, had a large Jewish
population. The name of the Jewish Queen Zenobia is familiar
to all. With the extension of the Parthian Empire, the Jews
spread their colonies as far as India. Alexander the Great, in his
Asiatic campaigns, became acquainted with them and was favor-
ably disposed toward them. Many of them served in his armies
and shared the dangers, fatigues, and glories of his mighty wars.
In all the States founded by him he granted them, equally with
the Greeks and Macedonians, the rights of citizenship, religious
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 265
freedom, and exemption from taxes during the sabbatical year.
Under the later Macedonian kings they enjoyed the same priv-
ileges, and Egypt became a second Judea. They inhabited two
out of the five quarters of Alexandria, and outside of Egypt they
dwelt in the Libyan Valley as far as the boundaries of Ethiopia.
The Macedonian princes regarded them as the most trustwor-
thy and honorable subjects, whose intelligence and industry
made them indispensable to the welfare of the State, and whose
courage and endurance rendered them highly desirable as
soldiers. In Antioch, the third city of the Roman Empire, they
possessed a magnificent synagogue, and received a State pension
for the maintenance of their worship. Ptolemy I. (Soter) intrusted
them with the most important fortification on the Nile delta;
Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus) had the Pentateuch translated into
Greek; Ptolemy IV. (Philometer) confided the administration of
his kingdom and the command of his armies to the Jews;
Ptolemy Lagi sent a number of them to Cyrene to consolidate
his forces among the Cyrenaic towns. Thus they played an
important role in the history of the Ptolemies, partly as soldiers,
partly as statesmen, partly, also, as the most efficient general
agency in maintaining civil order and the strength of the nation.
It is unnecessary to follow them over Asia Minor, into all the
cities of European Greece, and of the Roman Empire, where
they had communities and synagogues.We see them as agricul-
turists, merchants, and soldiers, showing no trace of the
tendency to sordid occupations which is said to be innate in
their character and essential to their social institutions.
In the year 70, Jerusalem, the soul of their national life, was
destroyed by Pompey. From this period dates the singular, the
unique phenomenon of a landless, denationalized people, dispersed
over every country of the globe, and yet bound together by a
purely spiritual tie—an idea—in the most enduring, subtly
woven, and indissoluble union that the world has ever seen.
Thenceforth their patriotism, as well as their religion, consisted
in guarding intact against the corruptions of the outside world
the sublime idea of the unity of God, and the just and lofty ordi-
nances of the Mosaic code. "Our Messiah," says Johannjacoby, "is
Truth, which is undermining, with ever-increasing force, ancient
266 EMMA LAZARUS
prejudices and mediaeval statutes, and which sooner or later will
emancipate us."
1
The last efforts of the Jews to regain their national seat was
made between the years 132-135, when Bar-Kocheba preached
a war against the Romans, and the people rose in insurrection,
only to be vanquished and to lose forever their independence.
Jerusalem was a ruin, Palestine a waste, and the fate of the Jews
was sealed. But they did not go forth at first among strange
nations, who merely tolerated them, and from whom they had
to beg or else resort to the meanest employment for subsistence.
They were received as brothers by the communities of their co-
religionists, honorably established in all civilized lands. The
Romans gave them the rights of citizenship, admitted them to
the army, permitted them to intermarry with Roman families,
and appointed them to any high official position requiring
shrewd insight, a clear mind, and a strong will.
During the first century of Christianity the Jews lived on the
friendliest terms with the Christians, their religious systems
having sprung from a common root, while the only difference
of opinion between them concerned the question of the
Messiahship. It was left for a later age, when the facts of the case
were less clear in the world's memory, to hold the Jews guilty of
the crucifixion. The Romans designated them as the "better sort
of Christians." Modern historians (Christian no less than Jewish)
agree that the wide diffusion of Judaism was one of the chief
elements in the rapid propagation of Christianity. The Christians
of the first century after Jesus were already divided into two sects,
viz: Jewish Christians, and Pagan or Hellenistic Christians. The
former were scarcely to be distinguished from the Jews proper.
They regarded Jesus as a great and holy man, descended in a
perfectly natural manner from King David; and they strictly
observed the Jewish law, on the authority of Jesus himself, who
I
Qtd. in Beck, 77. Unless otherwise noted or attributed by Lazarus to another histo-
rian, such as Milman, the remaining quotations are also from Beck. Johann Jacoby
(1805-77)
 was a
 Prussian Jewish politician and advocate of Jewish emancipation and
liberal democracy. His collected writings and speeches were published as Gesammelte
Schriften und Reden, 2 vols. (Hamburg, 1872).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 267
said, "I am not come to destroy (the law) but to fulfill." Their
motto was the verse, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the king-
dom of heaven;"
1
 hence they derived the name of Ebionites
(poor). They were to be found in Jerusalem, Galilee, Capernaum,
and other parts of Syria, especially in Antioch, where the name
of Christian was first adopted.They founded colonies, the great-
est of which was that of Rome.
The Pagan Christians were the followers of Paul and his disci-
ples,Timothy and Titus, and they dwelt chiefly in the seven cities
of Asia Minor: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyratira, Sardis,
Philadelphia, and Laodiocea, as well as in Greece, Macedonia and
Thessaly. They regarded Jesus as the veritable Son of God, and
worshipped him accordingly, they rejected the Jewish law, the
observance of the Sabbath, and holy days, etc. The gradual crys-
tallization of the huge organism of the church, and the curious
blending of Judaism and Paganism in its rites and ceremonies,
originated among the Hellenistic Christians. Thus, the Jewish
ceremonies of baptism and the evening-meal or communion
supper were retained, and to these was attached a mystic signifi-
cance thoroughly in accord with the Greek temper of mind.
Between the Jews and the Ebionites subsisted perfect cordiality
and free intercourse; between the Jews and the Pauline Christians,
on the other hand, existed from the beginning mutual repulsion
and contempt. In proportion as the Ebionite Christians inclined
more and more decidedly to the tenets of the Hellenistic, they
naturally widened the distance between themselves and the Jews,
until all semblance of unity was lost.
2
In the year 339 A.C., the Emperor Constantius passed a law
prohibiting the possession by Jews of Christian slaves, emancipat-
ing any slave who had embraced Judaism, and confiscating the
entire property of the Jew who had had his slaves circumcised. As
society was then constituted, the flourishing communities of the
Jews could only be maintained with the help of slave labor, and
thus their material interests were radically injured. The second
1
 Matthew 5.17,3.
2
 For a succinct account of the schism in the Jewish Church, which resulted in the
establishment of Christianity, see Graetz's "History of the Jews," vol. iv., chap. 5.
(Lazarus's note, which refers to the German edition.)
268 EMMA LAZARUS
blow was aimed at their dignity, their manly pride. In many a war
they had fought for Rome; now; however, the army was no longer
Roman but Christian. In the year 418 they were excluded from
military service. Moreover, the Christian state shut them out from
official posts, which they had honorably filled in Pagan Rome.
These few measures summarily reduced their position from one
of equality to one of marked inferiority. From this time dates
a certain coolness in the mutual relations between Jews and
Christians, to be followed by a breach which the growing power
of the priests did its utmost to widen, and then, by the frightful
tragedy of centuries, of which the main cause was the fanaticism
of ignorant and brutal men, elevated to the rank of princes of the
Church. The unscrupulous priests represented Christ, the Son of
God and man, as the victim of Jewish crime, and inflamed the
hearts of believers with burning hatred. The storm began in
Byzantium, under the Emperors Zeno Isauricus, Justinian I.,
Heraclius and Leo Isauricus. The Jews were slaughtered and
burned, and the mob rapaciously plundered them. Fearful restric-
tions and persecutions ensued under the immediately succeeding
emperors, and no law, no imperial promise held good in favor of
the Jews. The church wanted money, money, money; more than
all taxes, tithes, and begging could supply. But she was obliged to
spare her own devotees, and so the infidel Jew became a conven-
ient and helpless victim of pillage. [...] Peter the Venerable, Abbot
of Clugny [sic], in a letter to the King of France, denouncing the
Jews, begged to condemn them mercifully not to a general
massacre, but in pure charity only to general pillage.
In vain did a few right-thinking princes, a few reasonable
Popes come forward to protect the unhappy race; the priesthood
proved stronger than prince or pontiff. Not only were the Jews
held accountable for the crucifixion, but the priests goaded on
the people with the wildest fables. They affirmed that the Jews
bought or stole Christian children in order to kill them for
Passover. Frederick II. tried to shield them against this monstrous
charge; the Republic ofVenice, in a State document, represented
it as a baseless lie, and several Popes did the same. Nevertheless
in many places the horrible superstition exists to-day.
They were forbidden to own real estate; their marriages were
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 269
illegal without the blessing of a Christian priest; in certain coun-
tries they were not permitted to have more than one child; no
Christian could be indicted for a crime against a Jew; the right
of emigration was denied them; they were literally chained to
the soil, and became thralls of the proprietors. Add to all this,
periodic riots, massacres, and expulsions. They were, moreover
treated as property, bought and sold like objects of merchandise
by subjects and sovereigns. [...]
The Jew was usually forced to wear a badge or a peculiar
costume, and, in some places, branded on the chin in order to
make him a more conspicuous mark for Christian contempt and
hatred. He was imprisoned in Ghettos, where he forgot the use of
his mother-tongue and exchanged it for a Hebrew jargon which
serves as a theme of amusement to the Jew-haters of to-day and
as a convincing proof that German Jews are no Germans. After
being robbed of his lands, he was excluded from all trades and all
manual occupation. One alone remained open to him—and this
one was forced upon him by law—usury. The first Jew who lived by
lending money on interest was the learned Rabbi Jacob Tarn, of
France, whom crusading hordes had plundered in 1146. He
complained bitterly of the necessity that forced upon him such an
occupation: "We have been left no other branch of industry to
support life and to pay the onerous taxes imposed upon us by our
landed seigneurs." Bernard de Clairvaux admonished his follow-
ers, during the second crusade, against persecuting the Jews,
because, if the Jews were not there, he said "Christian usurers
would deal more hardly by the people than the Jews did." In 1430
the Florentines betook themselves to the Jews of their city, who
accepted lower rates of interest, in order to escape the extortions
of Christian usurers. Centuries before the reproach of usury was
raised against the Jews, organized bands of Christian usurers, under
the name of Lombards, Etruscans, Florentines, Cahorsins,
Ultramontanes, marched through Europe under the protection
and recommendation of the Roman Curia, in order to enrich it
by means of fraudulent loans and usury.
Of course only the wealthier Jews could lend money; the mass
of the people were sunk in the deepest misery and condemned
to labors which the Christians shrank from with loathing, to
270 EMMA LAZARUS
labors that degrade men and stamp upon them the mark of the
Helot, the slave. [...]
If it be supposed that I am drawing too dark a picture of
Christian atrocities, and too partial a presentment of the innocence
of the victims, I can only say that I have spared my readers the
bloodiest and most revolting scenes in this hideous tragedy, and
refer them for these to the pages of the Rev. Dr. Milman, Dean of
St. Pauls.According to him, every great mediaeval institution, was,
in turn, a cause of anguish to the Jew. The Crusades were the signal
for relentless carnage, pillage, and violation. We read of eight
hundred Jews in one place, thirteen hundred in another, at the
same time ruthlessly massacred, and of Jewish parents everywhere
slaying their children and themselves to escape the tortures of the
fanatics. Shortly after the accession of Philip Augustus, a golden
crucifix and other ecclesiastical treasures having been found in
possession of a Jew, the following Sabbath, when the Jews were
peacefully assembled at worship, their synagogues were surrounded
by royal troops and they were all dragged to prison. The upshot
was the entire confiscation of their property, and the publication
of a royal edict commanding them instantly to leave France.
Twenty years later they were readmitted to the kingdom, and, as
Milman says, "forgetting all past injuries, in the steady pursuit of gain"
they returned under the infamous restrictions only to be again
plundered and expelled.
This "love of gain" is the single indictment urged occasion-
ally against the Jews by Dean Milman, whom an unflinching
study of history evidently smote with the horror which all
humane hearts must experience in reading the unvarnished
record of Jewish persecutions. And even this accusation is unsup-
ported by facts. The Jews did not select the vocation of usury; it
was enforced upon them by law, and whenever they were left to
a free development they chose other occupations in preference.
Then again the love of money which Dean Milman confesses
was the Christians' main motive in murdering, torturing, and
robbing, was only natural in a race to whom wealth was the sole
possible barrier—and that an inadequate one—against the
brutality of despots and mobs. The devoted nation literally had
no resting-place for the sole of their feet; if exiled from France,
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 271
it was only to be slaughtered in England or Germany, in Spain
or Italy. Therefore, when they received permission to re-enter
their former home, it is scarcely charitable to suppose that the
"love of gain" prompted their return among the people who,
however cruel, spoke their own language, and whom despite
every injustice, they still recognized as fellow-countrymen.
After the Crusades, came the insurrection of the peasants, the
"Pastoureaux," armed bands of shepherds marching through
France, "driven by the sternest fanaticism," says Milman, "to
relentless barbarities against the Jews." The latter appealed to
King and Pope in vain. Five hundred of them being besieged in
Verdun, where they had taken refuge, the shepherds set fire to
the gates; "the desperate Jews threw their children down to the
besiegers in hopes of mercy, and slew each other to a man."
When this sort of horror was quelled then followed the plague,
for which the Jews were held responsible, and, as the chronicle
says, "they were burned without distinction."
But the heart sickens at these endless narratives of blood and
fire. Let us turn to the other side and see what excuse is offered
for the crime. The charges against the Jews are summed up in the
story of Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons under Charlemagne.
"Jealous of the enviable opulence of this alien people" (I quote
Milman's words) he endeavored to prevent all communication
between them and his flock, and issued several obnoxious
Episcopal edicts. The Jews, who enjoyed a high degree of toler-
ation at that time, appealed to the Emperor for redress. Agobard
was summoned to state his grievances, and thereupon drew up
a petition in which he accused the Jews of "cursing daily
Christianity and Christ in their synagogues, and of insufferable
pride in vaunting the royal favor; he complained that they went
freely in and out of the royal palaces, that the highest persons
solicited their prayers and blessings, and that they boasted of gifts
of splendid dresses to their wives and matrons from royal and
princely donors." He complained also that "Jewish preachers had
more hearers than Christian preachers, and were held by the
uninstructed to be the better of the two."The only two charges
of any weight made by him were that the Jews sold to the
Christians meat unclean to themselves, and that they stole Christian
272 EMMA LAZARUS
children to sell them as slaves. He wound up with a long theo-
logical argument proving the wisdom and justice of persecuting
the Jews.The ignominious contempt with which the Bishop and
his petition were received proved the grave charges which are
maintained by ignorant bigotry to this day to have been even
then without foundation. Throughout the whole of Milman's
volumes, so black with the perfidy and cruelty of his own sect,
this petition of Agobards is the one formal arraignment made
against the Jewish people, and the Rev. Dean evidently consid-
ers it as ridiculous as did the Emperor Charlemagne.
It has been remarked with bitter truth that "if the Jews under
the fearful tortures they have endured, had become a nation of
idiots, they would have only formed a fitting monument to the
brutality with which through the ages they have been wantonly
persecuted."
1
 Let us leave, however, these revolting pages for a
brighter side of their history; and before narrating their tardy
emancipation, within the present century, and its brilliant results,
let us glance at the one sunny spot which shines forth amid the
mediaeval darkness. While the rest of Europe was buried in super-
stition and barbarism, the dominion of the Moors exempted a
large part of Spain from the influences of the Church. Here the
intellectual and moral development of the Jews had free scope,
and we find them consequently engaged in all branches of
productive industry,—silk-merchants, dyers of purple, glass-
manufacturers, as well as superintendents of the noble colleges
founded by the Saracens, scholars, doctors, poets, statesmen, and
philosophers.They were, according to Draper, the "leading intel-
lects of the world."
2
 [...]
Space forbids more than a passing mention of the illustrious
Jews who, under a benign rule of tolerant enlightenment,
adorned the annals of their race in Spain: Samuel ha-Nagid, the
"Prince" (died 1055), nominally prime-minister, but virtually
little less than Regent of Granada, under two successive kings,
1
 "Nineteenth Century." February, 1881. (Lazarus's note.) Lucien Wolf, "A Jewish View
of the Anti-Jewish Agitation," The Nineteenth Century (Feb. 1881): 352.
2
 John William Draper, History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (New York,
1874), 143.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 273
for thirty years; Moses ben Ezra and Jehuda ha-Levi, poets of the
first rank, from whom Heine drew a large part of his inspiration;
Ibn-Gabirol, better known by his Spanish name of Avicebron,
poet and philosopher, in whose works may be found the germ
of Spinoza's system, and whose sublime poems have been incor-
porated in all Jewish rituals, side by side with the hymns of the
Psalmist and the prophecies of Isaiah; last and greatest of all,
Maimonides, the physician of Saladin,"the glory of the West, the
light of the East, the Eagle of the synagogue, the Second
Moses,"—such men as these shed luster upon humanity. [...]
To a later period, that of Ferdinand and Isabella, belonged
another great Jew, Don Isaac Abarbanel, scholar, philosopher, and
minister of finance. On account of his indispensable services, his
unblemished character, and his profound learning, he was made
the single exception in the decree expelling the whole Jewish
nation from Spain. He threw himself at the sovereigns' feet, and
offered the fortune of a prince to redeem his unhappy nation;
but when this was refused, he himself declined to profit by the
royal favor, and voluntarily went forth to misery and exile with
his co-religionists.
The details of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, at the
instigation of the priests of the Inquisition, are harrowing beyond
description.... Dying with cold, hunger, squalor, and thirst, they
yet were refused admission to the inhospitable towns where they
attempted to land—Genoa, Rome, Fez, etc. Some were disem-
barked, naked and destitute on the coasts of Africa, and were
devoured by wild beasts; some plunged into the sea and "sunk
like lead"; thousands were sold into slavery. The King of Portugal,
Joam II., son-in-law of Ferdinand and Isabella, appointed a day
for them to quit his kingdom, and in the meantime issued a
secret order to seize all Jewish children under fourteen years of
age, and disperse them to be baptized. [...]
For fully three centuries there remained in Europe no spot of
refuge for the luckless race, until the French Revolution, break-
ing a million chains, brought with it also their emancipation.
Wherever the French rule was established, the Jews were
accorded full rights of citizenship, but almost a century was
needed to complete their enfranchisement throughout the rest
274 EMMA LAZARUS
of Europe—nor is it to-day completed....
II.
Even so cursory a review of historic facts as I have condensed
into the foregoing pages suffices, I think, to establish the chief
points I desire to maintain, viz: that the Jews are naturally a race
of high moral and intellectual endowments, and that such super-
ficial peculiarities as may not infrequently be found among them
to-day which excite the aversion of Christians, are the lingering
traces of unparalleled sufferings. The mere survival of the Jew,
despite every provision made for his extermination, evinces the
vitality of a singularly well-equipped organization, while the elas-
ticity with which he rebounds as soon as the strain of adverse
conditions is removed, is without parallel. [...]
The insatiable thirst of the Jews is not for money, as calum-
niously asserted, but for knowledge. In those districts of Poland
and Russia where they are refused admittance to the schools, they
have had books of natural science and Darwinian treatises trans-
lated into Hebrew in order to follow the intellectual movement
of the age. In the Russian universities, where they have been
granted admission under onerous restrictions, they already largely
outnumber the proportion of Christian students. The first use
they make of their freedom invariably is to embrace all methods
of higher instruction, and to strive toward a more complete intel-
lectual development. It is assumed by Christian historians that the
Jews, with their inflexible adherence to the Mosaic Code, are, as
a people, a curious relic of remote antiquity, a social anachronism,
so to speak, petrified in the midst of advancing civilization. This
assumption is without foundation; the Jews are, on the contrary,
most frequently the pioneers of progress. The simplicity of their
creed enables them more readily and naturally to throw off the
shackles of superstition and to enlarge the boundaries of free
speculation than any other sect. Considering their religion from
the highest standpoint, their creed to-day is at one with the latest
doctrines of science, proclaiming the unity of the Creative force.
No angels, saints, or mediators have any place in this sublime
conception, arrived at intuitively in a pre-historic age by the
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 275
genius of the race, and confirmed by that modern scientific
research which has revolutionized the thought of the world. The
modern theory of socialism and humanitarianism erroneously
traced to the New Testament, has its root in the Mosaic Code.
The Christian doctrine is the doctrine of consolation; the king-
dom of heaven is held out as a glittering dream to suffering
humanity. Poverty exalted into a mission, the vocation of the
mystic, the spiritualist, the idealist, enjoined equally upon all, a
vision and an ecstasy offered to the hungry and the needy; what
provision is here made for the world as it is? On the other hand,
the very latest reforms urged by political economists, in view of
the misery of the lower classes, are established by the Mosaic
Code, which formulated the principle of the rights of labor, deny-
ing the right of private property in land, asserting that the corners
of the field, the gleanings of the harvest belonged injustice, not in
chanty, to the poor and the stranger; and that man owed a duty,
not only to all humanity, but even to the beast of the field, and
"the ox that treads the corn."
1
 In accordance with these princi-
ples we find the fathers of modern socialism to be three Jews—
Ferdinand Lassalle, Karl Marx, and Johann Jacoby.
As an example of the difficulties that impede the progress of
religious reform among the Jews, it may be stated that when a large
number of Prussian Israelites first founded a German "Temple" in
Berlin, in order to put an end to obsolete rites and sighing after
Jerusalem, and to introduce German hymns, a German ritual, and
an organ accompaniment, the government interfered, and prohib-
ited such services as "Deistical sectarianism." Preaching in the
German tongue was especially forbidden, in the avowed fear that
the Jews might thereby succeed in converting Christians.
The melancholy and disgraceful fact being established that, in
these closing decades of the nineteenth century, the long-suffer-
ing Jew is still universally exposed to injustice, proportioned to
the barbarity of the nation that surrounds him, from the inde-
scribable atrocities of Russian mobs, through every degree of
refined insult to petty mortification, the inevitable result has been
to arouse most thinking Jews to the necessity of a vigorous and
1
 Deuteronomy 25.4.
276 EMMA LAZARUS
concerted action of defense. They have long enough practiced
to no purpose the doctrine which Christendom has been
content to preach, and which was inculcated by one of their own
race,—when the right cheek was smitten to turn also the left.
They have proved themselves willing and able to assimilate with
whatever people and to endure every climatic influence. But
blind intolerance and ignorance are now forcibly driving them
into that position which they have so long hesitated to assume.
They must establish an independent nationality.
Neither we nor our immediate descendants can hope to see
humanity at that point of perfection where the helpless and
submissive victim will, as such, be respected. Existence contin-
ues to be a struggle in which the fittest can survive only through
the energetic assertion and constant proof of superiority. The idea
formulated by George Eliot has already sunk into the minds of
many Jewish enthusiasts, and it germinates with miraculous
rapidity. [Excerpt from Daniel Deronda.
J
]
I am fully persuaded that all suggested solutions other than this
of the Jewish problem are but temporary palliatives. Could the
noble prophetess who wrote the above words have lived but till
to-day to see the ever-increasing necessity of adopting her inspired
counsel, though her own heart would have been lacerated by "the
hideous obloquy of Christian strife,"
2
 yet she would have been
herself astonished at the flame enkindled by her seed of fire, and
the poetical shape which the movement projected by her in
poetic vision is beginning to assume. Highly significant in this
connection are the labors of the "Alliance Universelle Israelite"
and the recent Jewish conference held in Berlin on April 23,1882,
where the chief cities of Germany, England, France, and the
United States were represented, where such men as Lasker,
Professor Derembourg, Sir J. Goldsmid, professors, privy-coun-
cilors, and members of the Imperial Diet took prominent part, and
where a vast Jewish system of mutual cooperation and aid was
organized. "The result of the present Russian persecution," says
1
 The Daniel Deronda selection in Appendix D includes the excerpts quoted by Lazarus.
2
 See Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Chap. 41. The phrase "seed of fire" is also from this novel,
Chap. 42 (see Appendix D).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 277
the "American Hebrew," "has been to knit Jew to Jew as never we
have been knitted since the dispersion."
1
 From the princes of
European finance to the most wretched despoiled refugee who
steps from the steerage of the emigrant steamer upon our soil,
every true Jewish heart to-day burns with the same sentiment of
patriotism and of sympathy. Mr. Laurence Oliphant s scheme for
the colonization of Palestine has been too thoroughly and clearly
defined in his own interesting volume, the "Land of Gilead," and
has attracted too much attention from the press of Europe and
America to need more than brief mention here.
2
 Strongly
impressed with the advisability on political, commercial, and phil-
anthropic grounds, of establishing a Jewish colony in Palestine, Mr.
Oliphant started three years ago on an exploring expedition
through the land east of the Jordan. The result of his travels was to
intensify into an ardent faith his conviction of the practicability
and desirability of the plan. In commencing upon it in the
"Nineteenth Century" of August, 1882, he writes:
"The idea of a return to the East has seized upon the imagina-
tion of the masses and produced a wave of enthusiasm in favor
of emigration to Palestine, the force and extent of which only
those who have come in direct contact with it, as I have done,
can appreciate."
3
How politic and rational, as well as humane, is his suggestion, is
proved by the fact that it met with cordial encouragement from
princes and statesmen, among others the Prince of Wales, the
Prince and Princess of Schleswig-Holstein, the Prime-Minister
I
2
3
"Our Visitor," The American Hebrew (12 May 1882): 146. The Paris-based Alliance
Universelle Israelite, an international Jewish organization founded in 1860, was work-
ing to provide relief for Russian Jewish refugees; the conference in Berlin met for
the same purpose. Eduard Lasker (1829-84) was a Prussian politician and leader of
the Liberal Party; Joseph Naphtali Derenbourg (1811-95) was a professor of Hebrew
language and literature at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris; Sir Francis
Goldsmid (1808-78) was a lawyer and a member of the British Parliament.
Laurence Oliphant, The Land of Gilead; With Excursions in the Lebanon (New York,
1881).
Laurence Oliphant, "The Jew and the Eastern Question," The Nineeteenth Century
(Aug. 1882)1245.
278 EMMA LAZARUS
of England, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Grand
Vizier ofTurkey, Khairreddin Pasha. Committees were organized,
and Palestine Colonization Societies were formed. All over
Russia, Roumania, Poland, Galicia, and Bulgaria, thousands of
Jewish families registered themselves as ready to start, a fund of
over £ 2,000,000 was raised, and official agents were appointed
all over Turkey, when suddenly the whole movement was para-
lyzed by the Sultans ordinance prohibiting Jews from settling in
Palestine.
Every Israelite who entered the Ottoman Empire was obliged
to sign a paper binding him not to establish himself in the Holy
Land, and thus the enterprise for the moment is at end.
Nevertheless it has afforded conclusive proof of two vital points
hitherto generally denied, viz: first, that a very large majority of
the Jewish people earnestly wish to be restored to the land of
their forefathers, and second, that the Jews not only evince no
natural repugnance to agricultural labor, but, on the contrary,
enthusiastically proclaim their desire to pursue it. [...]
Eternally grateful as all Jews must be to such Christians as
George Eliot and Laurence Oliphant, they neither should nor need
seek outside of their own ranks their guide or their spokesman.
They who in our own generation have led the Conservatives of
England, the Liberals of Germany, the Republicans of France, can
surely furnish a new Ezra for their own people.
While a few years ago the most enlightened Jews, yielding to
the indolent apathy of comparative security, would have ignored
or ridiculed the vision of a Restoration, to-day it is no exagger-
ation to say that whenever two Israelites of ordinary intelligence
come together, the possibility, nay the probability, of again form-
ing a united nation is seriously discussed. [...]
There is something absolutely startling in the world s sudden
awakening to the probable destiny of Israel. To judge from the
current literature of the day, as represented by the foremost
European periodicals, it has been reserved for Christians to
proclaim the speedy advent of that Jewish triumph for which the
Jew has hoped against hope during his prolonged agony of twenty
centuries. In all such questions as this, that which is agitated to-
day, is formulated and acted upon on the morrow, or as Emerson
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 279
put it, "the aspiration of this century is the code of the next."
1
Again and again has history repeated this process. Where so many
minds are considering how best to overcome the obstacles, the
problem must sooner or later be solved, and when the hour strikes,
the man will not be missing. The question is not one of narrow
sectarianism; indeed it is scarcely any longer a religious one. Jews
who are fully emancipated from the yoke of dogmas have this
national sentiment not less, but rather more, fully than do the
bigots and zealots who are necessarily men of inferior intellect.
A young Russian Jew of the former stamp expressed to me,
in a recent conversation, views of such significance on this
subject that with them I may fitly close my paper, for they sum
up the desires and ambitions of the nation.
"The mission of the Jews throughout history has been to protest
against corruption and despotism in religion and morals. The
religious mission of the Jew belongs to the past: it is no longer
necessary to preach the unity of God. But the moral mission
remains unchanged: he has still to protest against narrowness,
corruption, and materialism. As for his mixing with Christians,
I have no fear nor objection in regard to it; he can but mix in
blood; the genius of the Semitic race cannot be adulterated, but
flows through history pure and distinct as the waters of the
Rhone through the Rhine. * * * The racial tie binds Jews
together even though they discard all religion. What they need
is to be once more consolidated as a nation. They are essentially
an original people, borrowing neither thoughts, emotions, nor
manners of the nations around them. (From this statement I
exclude American Jews, who have lost color and individuality,
and are neither Jew nor Gentile.) Let them organize with suffi-
cient strength under a competent leader, and establish their
central government,—whether in Palestine or South America,
East or West, is a matter of indifference. Thus only can they
command respect from other nations. But I would not have all
Jews congregate in a single community: and their fate and their
1
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Woman," (1855). See The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, 12 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1903-1904) 11:424.
280 EMMA LAZARUS
purpose is to be separated. They are to serve as the connecting
link between hostile peoples, and to advance the glorious cause
of our common humanity. In their midst is to be found every
type of mind which a perfect community needs. They are the
greatest hero-worshipers in the world; except in matters of reli-
gion, they can be more easily swayed and kindled to enthusiasm
by an appeal to their imagination than any other people. Let the
hero arise to lead. Such things have been seen before and shall
be seen again. I am no dreamer; I speak of facts. In their present
wretched condition the Jews have grown old, they have lived too
long. But a new life will be instilled into them by such an
achievement; and once more incorporated as a fresh and active
nation, they will regain youthful vigor and power."
No, the nation is not dead that in its class of destitute outcasts
produces men filled with so haughty a pride, so high a patriot-
ism, and so indomitable a sense of election for a lofty mission as
breathe through these literally-quoted words of a Russian pariah.
The Poet Heine.
The recent publication in a German magazine of a fragment of
the long-lost "Memoirs of Heine," lends the fresh excitement of
a contemporary interest to the poet's classic name.
1
 If the
German public were naturally inclined to greet with a certain
skepticism the discovery of this duplicate autobiography, all
doubts as to its genuineness must vanish with the appearance of
the work itself. No one but Heine arisen from the grave could
reproduce that magically pictorial style, with its exquisitely inter-
woven tissue of fancy, sentiment, and humor.
A fatal and irreconcilable dualism formed the basis of Heine's
nature, and was the secret cause not only of his profound unhap-
piness, but of his moral and intellectual inconsistencies. He was a
Jew, with the mind and eyes of a Greek. A beauty-loving, myth-
creating pagan soul was imprisoned in a Hebrew frame; or rather,
i
"Heinrich Heine's Memoiren iiber Seine Jugendzeit" was published in Die
Gartenlaube in 1884. See Heine, Memorien, Werke, 15:59-100; and Heine's Memoirs.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 28l
it was twinned, like the unfortunate Siamese, with another equally
powerful soul,—proud, rebellious, oriental in its love of the vague,
the mysterious, the grotesque, and tragic with the two-thousand-
year old passion of the Hebrews. In Heine the Jew there is a depth
of human sympathy, a mystic warmth and glow of imagination, a
pathos, an enthusiasm, an indomitable resistance to every species
of bondage, totally at variance with the qualities of Heine the
Greek. On the other hand, the Greek Heine is a creature of laugh-
ter and sunshine, possessing an intellectual clearness of vision, a
plastic grace, a pure and healthy love of art for art's own sake, with
which the somber Hebrew was in perpetual conflict. What could
be the result of imprisoning two such antagonistic features in a
single body? What but the contradictions, the struggles, the tears,
the violences that actually ensued? For Heine had preeminently
the artist capacity of playing the spectator to the workings of his
own mind, and his mordant sarcasm and merciless wit were but
the expression of his own sense of the internal incongruity. None
of the unhappily bewitched creatures that abound in his poems,—
lovely mermaids with the extremities of a sea-monster, the immor-
tal Sphinx, half woman, half brute, beautiful Greek gods wandering
disinherited in beggar guise through the labyrinth of the Black
Forest—none of these had been subjected to a more painful trans-
formation than he himself had suffered. He was a changeling, the
victim of one of Natures most cruel tricks, and his legacy to the
world bears on every page the mark of the grotesque caprice
which had begotten him. To-day his muse is the beautiful
Herodias, the dove-eyed Shulamite; to-morrow it will be Venus
Anadyomene, the Genius of blooming Hellas.
1
 He laments the
ruin of Jerusalem with the heart-stirring accents of the prophets,
he glorifies Moses, "the great emancipator, the valiant rabbi of
liberty, the terrible enemy of all servitude! What a glorious person-
age!" he exclaims. "How small Mount Sinai looks when Moses
stands on its summit!" He confesses that in his youth he had never
1
 Herodias is the niece and second wife of Herod Antipas; in Matthew 14.3-11, she
encourages her daughter, Salome, to ask Herod for the head of John the Baptist.
Shulamite is a term applied to a beautiful young woman in Song of Solomon 6.13.
Venus Anadyomene is Aphrodite rising from the foam (the Birth ofVenus). Hellas is
ancient Greece.
282 EMMA LAZARUS
done justice to this great master, nor to the Hebrew people,—
"doubtless," he says, "on account of my Graeco-pagan nature, the
partiality of my Athenian mind which abhorred the asceticism of
Judaea. But my predilection for the Hellenic world has diminished
since then. I see now that the Greeks were only beautiful youths,
whilst the Jews were always men, and powerful, indomitable men,
not only then, in antiquity, but even to-day, in spite of eighteen
centuries of persecution and misery. I have learned to appreciate
them since, and if all pride of birth were not an absurd contradic-
tion, in the champion of the democratic principles of the revolu-
tion, the author of this book might boast that his ancestors
belonged to the noble house of Israel, that he is descended from
those martyrs who gave the world a God, who promulgated the
eternal code of morality, and who have fought valiantly upon
every battlefield of thought!"
1
Let the reader contrast with this eloquent outburst the well-
known passage written at a still later date in the preface to
Heine's last volume of poems:
"I have forsworn nothing, not even my old heathen gods, from
whom indeed I have parted, but parted in love and friendship. It
was in May, 1848, the last day I went out, that I took leave of my
lovely idols whom I had worshipped in the time of my happi-
ness. I crawled painfully as far as the Louvre, and I almost fainted
away when I entered the lofty hall, where the ever-blessed
Goddess of Beauty, our beloved Lady of Milo, stands upon her
pedestal. I lay for a long time at her feet, and I wept so bitterly
that even a stone would have pitied me. And indeed the goddess
looked down upon me compassionately, yet at the same time so
disconsolately, as if she would say:'Do you not see that I have no
arms, and that I cannot help you?'"
2
If we bear in mind this distinctly dual nature of Heine, we may
partly understand how he, whom his enemies called "a sybarite,
1
 See Heine, Gestdndnisse, Werke, 15:155,149; Heine's Memoirs, 2:252.
2
 The passage is from the afterword to Romanzero. See Werke, 3:180-81; Complete Poems,
696.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 283
whose sleep was disturbed by the fall of a rose-leaf,"
1
 proved himself
capable during the last ten years of his life of a sustained fortitude
under bodily anguish that recalls the heroism of the martyrs. From
this inherent self-contradiction sprang his alterations of enthusiasm
and cynicism, of generosity and egotism, his infidelities, his mean-
nesses, his magnanimities, his broken-hearted laughter, his rainbow-
shining tears. Mr. Matthew Arnold speaks of his "inconceivable
attacks upon his enemies, his still more inconceivable attacks upon
his friends."
2
 We no longer wonder at either, when we remember
that his double nature impelled him to turn and rend on the
morrow that which he had worshipped the day before. He loves to
defy, to shock, even to revolt, his warmest admirers; no prejudices
are sacred, no associations are reverend to him. Romanticism,
Hellenism, Hebraism, Teutonism,—he swears allegiance to each
and all in turn, and invariably concludes with a mock and parody
of each one. As a political writer he remained steadfast to no single
party, oscillating between Napoleonism and Communism; as a
critic his literary opinions were frequently extravagant and partial,
and his enthusiasm generally an unsafe guide; as a philosopher, he
was now a Pantheist, worshipping God everywhere in nature, now
a Hegelian, believing in himself as the incarnation of deity. A mock-
ing voice calls out from his pages,"! am a Jew; I am a Christian, I
am tragedy, I am comedy—Heraclitus and Democritus in one—a
Greek, a Hebrew, an adorer of despotism incarnate in Napoleon,
an admirer of Communism embodied in Proudhon—a Latin, a
Teuton, a beast, a devil, a god! "Thus he bewitches us amid roguish
laughter, streaming tears, and fiery eloquence. In reality Heine is all
and none of these; he is a Poet, and in each phase of human devel-
opment that passes before his contemplation his plastic mind seizes
and reproduces an image of beauty and inspiration. It is only as a
poet that we shall consider him in these pages, for his prose-writ-
ings, which fill half a dozen octavo volumes, cover too large a field
of aesthetic and political interest for us properly to review them all
within the limits of a magazine article. Moreover, whether he wrote
1
 See Seneca, De Ira, 2.25.
2
 Matthew Arnold, "Heinrich Heine," Essays in Criticism (1865). See Lectures and Essays
in Criticism, ed. R.H. Super (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1962), 131.
284 EMMA LAZARUS
in prose or verse, Heine remained always and essentially a poet, and
from this single point of view we may get a true insight into his
genius. [...]
Heine made peculiarly his own the rich and lovely realm of
German tradition and folklore; he was undisputed master over the
elves, kobolds, undines and fairies, the willis, wizards,
enchantresses, and dwarfs that people the woods and springs of
his fatherland. He created anew the Lorelei of the Rhine and
Venus of the Wartburg; he was the lover and beloved of all the
exquisite creatures that inhabit the groves and water-ways, and in
many a poem he has described how the nymphs or the mermaids
come forth at twilight from their secret haunts to caress and entice
the melancholy poet. Even in his own day he was accepted as a
folk-singer, and his rhymes found their way to the heart of the
people and the lips of the peasantry, side by side with the bird-
like refrains of the mediaeval minstrels. No surer proof than this
could be offered of his thorough identification with the Teutonic
spirit and genius. But it was the graft of a foreign tree that gave
him his rich and spicy aroma, his glowing color, his flavor of the
Orient. His was a seed sprung from the golden branch that flour-
ished in Hebrew-Spain between the years 1000 and 1200.
Whoever looks into the poetry of the mediaeval Spanish Jews will
see that Heine, the modern, cynical German-Parisian, owns a
place among these devout and ardent mystics who preceded him
by fully eight centuries. The "Intermezzo," so new and individ-
ual in German literature, is but a well-sustained continuation of
the "Divan" and "Gazelles" of Judah Halevi, or the thinly veiled
sensuousness of Alcharisi and Ibn Ezra.
1
 Heine is too sincere a
poet to be accused of plagiarism, but there can be no doubt that,
imbued as he was with the spirit of his race, revering so deeply
their seldom-studied poetic legacy, he at times unwittingly
repeated the notes which rang so sweetly in his ears. What the
world thought distinctively characteristic of the man was often
simply a mode of expression peculiar to his people at their best.
To illustrate our meaning we will quote a few lines from one of
1
 For more on Judah Halevi, ibn Ezra, and Al-Harizi, see notes on p. 207, p. 212, and
p. 217. A "Divan" is a collection of poems in Arabic; and gazelles are a recurring image
in the work of these Spanish Hebrew poets.
SELECTE D POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 285
the older poets—Judah Halevi. Might they not have been inserted
in the very heart of the "Intermezzo," without our perceiving the
slightest variation of tone? [Lazarus's translation of Judah Halevi s
"Love-Song" quoted here, see p. 207-08 above.]
In the following stanza, translated from the Hebrew of Halevi,
we have even a flash of the Heine wit:
"The day I crowned his rapture at my feet,
He saw his image in mine eyeballs shine.
He kissed me on the eyes—ah, what deceit!
He kissed his picture, not these eyes of mine."
1
Heine has worthily celebrated his great predecessor in the poem
entitled "Judah Halevi," and his passionate lamentation for
Jerusalem has the very ring of the older poet. [Lazarus's transla-
tion of an excerpt from Heine's "Jehuda ben Halevy," 2, lines
I2I-I48.].
2
If Heine had never written any other Judaic poems than this
ballad of "Halevi," and the verses we are about to quote, he
would deserve a high place in that splendid galaxy which
includes not only Halevi and Gabirol, but David, Isaiah, and the
author of Job. [Lazarus's translation of Heine's dedication verses
to his unfinished novel The Rabbi of Bacherach.]^
But it would convey a false impression to insist unduly upon
the Hebrew element in Heine's genius, or to deduce therefrom
the notion that he was religiously at one with his people. His
sympathy with them was a sympathy of race, not of creed, and,
as we have said, it alternated with an equally strong revulsion in
favor of Greek forms and ideas of beauty. Nor did it ever restrain
him from showering his pitiless arrows of ridicule upon the
chosen race. No one has given us more irresistibly comic pictures
of their peculiar traits, no one comparable to him in wit and
power has so fully understood and exposed the lingering traces
1
 This is Lazarus's translation from the Hebrew. Her textual source has not been iden-
tified.
2
 "Jehuda ben Halevy (Fragment)" appears in Romanzero, See Werke, 3:139-40; Complete
Poems, 662-63. I
n
 the poem, Judah Halevi speaks these words.
3 See Werke, 1:526-27; Complete Poems, 285.
286 EMMA LAZARUS
stamped upon them by centuries of degradation. We repeat it, he
was no one thing long or consistently, and the deluded Jew who
takes up his work to chuckle over his witty sarcasms against
Christianity will be grievously disappointed suddenly to receive
a stinging blow full in the face from the same merciless hand.
Despite the magical fascination of Heine s style, there is no deny-
ing the continual recurrence of a false note in his song. We do not
speak of the flippancy or the vulgarity into which he occasionally
degenerates, but of a morbid, lachrymose sentimentality, which in
its first suggestion was unpleasant, and which, predominating in
proportion as his health and temper failed, more and more offends
a pure taste, and inexorably precludes him from wearing the crown
of those poets whose high prerogative it is to console, to uplift, to
lead humanity. Goethe ascribed Heine's weakness to the want of
love, and Matthew Arnold to a lack of moral balance.
1
 If, after these
authoritative voices, we presume to give another name to his
defect, it is not in contradiction, but rather in explanation, of their
terms. We should say that what he lacked, physically, mentally, and
morally, was—health. His love is a frenzy, his wit is often fantastic
and grotesque as a sick man's visions, his very enjoyment of nature
is more like the feverish excitement of an invalid who is allowed a
brief breathing-space in the sunshine, than the steady, sober inten-
sity of one of her life-long worshipers. [...]
It was impossible that the inharmonious elements combined in
Heine's personality should ever properly affiliate and result in a
sound, symmetric whole. His song is but the natural expression of
the inward dissonance. Its lack of repose and dignity is character-
istic of the tortured, vacillating soul, the over-strained nerves, and
the proud, brutally wounded heart that engendered it. Poor Heine!
I stood last summer by the grave of this free song-bird of the
German forest. He lies in the stony heart of Paris amidst the
hideous monuments decked with artificial wreaths of bead and
wire that form the usual adornments of a French cemetery. [...]
Far from the parents whom he had loved with the passionate
1
 Arnold's judgment appears in "Heinrich Heine," 131. Goethe did not actually accuse
Heine of a "want of love," though it was widely believed that he did because of a mistake
in J.P. Eckermann's Gesprache mit Goethe. See Lectures and Essays in Criticism, 440.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 287
intensity of the Jew, far from his kinsfolk and the friends of his
youth, surrounded by strangers to whom the very name on the
tombstone is an unpronounceable, barbaric word,—he seems even
in death an exile and outcast.
Yet no! Even now, more than a quarter of a century after his
death, perhaps he is better thus.The day before I visited his tomb
the barrier-wall between the Jewish and Christian portions of
the cemetery of Montmartre had been demolished by order of
the French government. As I saw the rubbish and wreck left by
the work of humane destruction, I could not but reflect with
bitterness that the day had not yet dawned beyond the Rhine,
when Germany, free from race-hatred and bigotry, is worthy and
ready to receive her illustrious Semitic son.
Day in Surrey with William Morris.
1
[...JThere is no branch of work performed in Mr. Morris's
factory in which he himself is not skilled; he has rediscovered
lost methods and carefully studied existing processes. Not only
do his artisans share his profits, but at the same time they feel that
he understands their difficulties and requirements, and that he
can justly estimate and reward their performance. Thus an
admirable relation is established between employer and
employed, a sort of frank comradeship, marked by mutual respect
and good-will. In this relation, Mr. Morris seems to have
borrowed all that was sound and admirable from the connection
between the mediaeval master-workman and his artist-appren-
tices. The excellent custom, restored from the generally despised
days that preceded the invention of the steam-engine, Mr. Morris
has modified, by adding thereto that spirit of intimate, boundless
sympathy which under the name of humanitarianism is the
peculiar product, as it is the chief dawning glory, of our own age.
The exquisite fabrics to be found in his workshop, which have
1
 William Morris (1834-96), an English poet, translator, designer, craftsman, and social-
ist. His design work is associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement. He is the author
or translator of several books, including The Life and Death of Jason (1867), The Earthly
Paradise (1868-70), TheAeneids of Virgil Done into English (1876), and The Story of Sigurd
the Volsung and the Fall ofNiblungs (1877).
288 EMMA LAZARUS
so largely influenced English taste in household decoration, are
intended to perform another service less conspicuous but still
more important than the first. That the workman shall take pleas-
ure in his work, that decent conditions of light and breathing-
space and cleanliness shall surround him, that he shall be made
to feel himself not the brainless "hand," but the intelligent coop-
erator, the friend of the man who directs his labor, that his honest
toil shall inevitably win fair and comfortable wages, whatever be
the low-water record of the market-price of men, that illness or
trouble befalling him during the term of his employment shall
not mean dismissal and starvation,—these are some of the prob-
lems of which Mr. Morris's factory is a noble and successful solu-
tion. For himself, he eschews wealth and luxury, which are
within easy reach of his versatile and brilliant talents, in order
that for a few at least of his brother men he may rob toil of its
drudgery, servitude of its sting, and poverty of its horrors.
Mr. Morris's work has two distinct moral purposes,—one in
its bearing upon the producer, which we have just considered,
and the other in its relation to the purchaser. In the latter
connection his aim has been to revive a sense of beauty in home
life, to restore the dignity of art to ordinary household decora-
tion. So strong and wide has been his influence that he may be
said to have revolutionized English taste in decorative art.
Graceful designs reproduced from natural outdoor objects,
fabrics of substantial worth, be they the simplest cotton stuffs or
the most exquisite silks and brocades, colors that shall ever stay
fast through sunshine and shade,—these are the general charac-
teristics of his manufactures. [...]
In making the personal acquaintance of one whose artistic
work is familiar and admirable to us, the main interest must ever
be to trace the subtle, elusive connection between the man and
his creation. In the case of Mr. Morris, at first sight, nothing can
be more contradictory than the "dreamer of dreams born out
of his due time,"
1
 and the practical business man and eager
student of social questions who successfully directs the Surrey
factory and the London shop. Little insight is required, however,
1
 See William Morris, "Apology," The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), line 22.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 289
soon to find beneath this thoroughly healthy exterior the most
impersonal and objective English poet of our generation. The
conspicuous feature of his conversation and character is the total
absence of egoism, and we search in vain through his volumi-
nous writings for that morbid habit of introspection which gives
the keynote to nineteenth-century literature. He has the child-
like delight in telling a story for the story's sake of Chaucer,
Boccaccio, and Scott, the plastic power of setting before us in
simple and distinct outlines figures of force and grace entirely
removed from his own conditions and temperament, the
unmoralizing, hearty pleasure in nature and art which charac-
terized an earlier age. [...]
The passion for beauty, which unless balanced by a sound and
earnest intelligence is apt to degenerate into sickly and selfish
aestheticism, inflames him with the burning desire to bring all
classes of humanity under its benign influence. That art, together
with the leisure and capacity to enjoy it, should be monopolized
by the few, seems to him as egregious a wrong as that men should
go hungry and naked. With this plain clew to the poet's charac-
ter, there is no longer any contradiction between the uncom-
promising socialist and the exquisite artist of "The Earthly
Paradise." If Mr. Morris's poetry have (as I think no one will
dispute) that virginal quality of springtide freshness and direct-
ness which we generally miss in modern literature, and which
belonged to Chaucer as to Homer, the cause may be found in
his reproduction in methods and principles of life of certain
conditions under which classic art was generated. He has chosen
to be a man before being a poet; he has rounded and developed
all sides of a well-equipped and powerful individuality; he has
plunged vehemently into the rushing stream of current action
and thought, and has made himself at one with his struggling,
panting, less vigorous fellow-swimmers. He has not only trained
himself intellectually to embrace with wide culture the spirit of
Greek mythology, the genius of Scandinavian as of Latin poetry,
but he has cultivated muscle and heart as well as nerve and brain.
The result upon his art has been indirect, but none the less posi-
tive. He seems intuitively to have obeyed those singular rules for
poetic creation formulated by Walt Whitman. [Excerpt from the
290 EMMA LAZARUS
1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass.}
1
Mr. Morris's extreme socialistic convictions are the subject of
so much criticism at home, that a few words concerning them
may not be amiss here. Rather would he see the whole frame-
work of society shattered than a continuance of the actual condi-
tion of the poor. "I do not want art for a few, any more than
education for a few or freedom for a few. No, rather than that art
should live this poor, thin life among a few exceptional men,
despising those beneath them for an ignorance for which they
themselves are responsible, for a brutality which they will not
struggle with; rather than this, I would that the world should
indeed sweep away all art for a while.... Rather than the wheat
should rot in the miser s granary, I would that the earth had it,
that it might yet have a chance to quicken in the dark."
2
The above paragraph, from a lecture delivered by Mr. Morris
before the Trades' Guild of Learning, gives the key to his socialis-
tic creed, which he now makes it the main business of his life to
promulgate. In America the avenues to ease and competency are
so broad and numerous, the need for higher culture, finer taste,
more solidly constructed social bases is so much more conspicu-
ous than the inequality of conditions, and the necessity to level
and destroy, that the intelligent American is apt to shrink with
aversion and mistrust from the communistic enthusiast. In
England, however, the inequalities are necessarily more glaring, the
pressure of that densely crowded population upon the means of
subsistence is so strenuous and painful, that the humane on-looker,
whatever be his own condition, is liable to be carried away by
excess of sympathy. One hears to-day of individual Englishmen of
every rank flinging themselves with reckless heroism into the
breach, sacrificing all thought of personal interest in the desperate
endeavor to stem the huge flood of misery and pauperism. Among
such men stands William Morris, and however wild and visionary
his hopes and aspirations for the people may appear to outsiders,
his magnanimity must command respect. No thwarted ambitions,
1
 Walt Whitman, "Preface, 1855, to first issue of Leaves of Grass," Prose Works 1892, ed.
Floyd Stovall, 2 vols. (New York: New York UP, 1963-64), 2:440-41.
2
 See William Morris, "The Lesser Arts" (1878). Rpt. in Hopes and Fears for Art (London,
1882).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITING S 291
no stunted capacities, no narrow, sordid aims have ranged him on
the side of the disaffected, the agitator, the outcast. As poet, scholar,
householder, and capitalist, he has everything to lose by the victory
of that cause to which he has subordinated his whole life and
genius.The fight is fierce and bitter; so thoroughly has it absorbed
his energies, so rilled and inspired and illumined is he with his aim,
that it is only after leaving his presence we realize that it is to this
man s strong and delicate genius we owe the enchanting visions
of "The Earthly Paradise," and Sigurd the Volsung, the story of
Jason, and "The ^Eneids ofVirgil."
292 EMMA LAZARUS
Appendix A: Biography
[First printed in The Century (Oct. 1888), Josephine Lazarus's
biography provides insight and information about Emma Lazarus's
life available nowhere else—including excerpts from journals that
are now lost. The article pays detailed attention to her career as a
poet, her Jewish activism, and her trips to Europe. It also introduces
a highly influential but questionable view of a withdrawn and femi-
nine Lazarus whose interest in Jewish politics, history, and culture
emerged only in the i88os in a dramatically sudden manner.]
Josephine Lazarus, "Emma Lazarus," The Poems of Emma
Lazarus, 2 vols. (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin,
1889) i:i-39-
One hesitates to lift the veil and throw the light upon a life so hidden
and a personality so withdrawn as that of Emma Lazarus; but while
her memory is fresh, and the echo of her songs still lingers in these
pages, we feel it a duty to call up her presence once more, and to note
the traits that made it remarkable and worthy to shine out clearly
before the world. Of dramatic episode or climax in her life there is
none; outwardly all was placid and serene, like an untroubled stream
whose depths alone hold the strong, quick tide. The story of her life
is the story of a mind, of a spirit, ever seeking, ever striving, and press-
ing onward and upward to new truth and light. Her works are the
mirror of this progress. In reviewing them, the first point that strikes
us is the precocity, or rather the spontaneity, of her poetic gift. She
was a born singer; poetry was her natural language, and to write was
less effort than to speak, for she was a shy, sensitive child, with strange
reserves and reticences, not easily putting herself en rapport with those
around her. Books were her world from her earliest years; in them she
literally lost and found herself. She was eleven years old when the War
of Secession
1
 broke out, which inspired her first lyric outbursts. Her
poems and translations written between the ages of fourteen and
seventeen were collected, and constituted her first published volume.
Crude and immature as these productions naturally were, and utterly
1
 The U.S. Civil War (1861-65).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 293
condemned by the writer's later judgment, they are, nevertheless,
highly interesting and characteristic, giving, as they do, the keynote
of much that afterwards unfolded itself in her life. One cannot fail to
be rather painfully impressed by the profound melancholy pervading
the book.The opening poem is "In Memoriam,"—on the death of a
school friend and companion; and the two following poems also have
death for theme. "On a Lock of my Mothers Hair" gives us reflec-
tions on growing old. These are the four poems written at the age of
fourteen. There is not a wholly glad and joyous strain in the volume,
and we might smile at the recurrence of broken vows, broken hearts,
and broken lives in the experience of this maiden just entered upon
her teens, were it not that the innocent child herself is in such deadly
earnest. [...] We have said that Emma Lazarus was a born singer, but
she did not sing, like a bird, for joy of being alive; and of being young,
alas! there is no hint in these youthful effusions, except inasmuch as
this unrelieved gloom, this ignorance of "values," so to speak, is a sign
of youth, common especially among gifted persons of acute and
premature sensibilities, whose imagination, not yet focused by reality,
overreaches the mark. With Emma Lazarus, however, this sombre
streak has a deeper root; something of birth and temperament is in
it,—the stamp and heritage of a race born to suffer. But dominant
and fundamental though it was, Hebraism was only latent thus far. It
was classic and romantic art that first attracted and inspired her. She
pictures Aphrodite the beautiful, arising from the waves, and the beau-
tiful Apollo and his loves,—Daphne, pursued by the god, changing
into the laurel, and the enamored Clytie into the faithful sunflower.
1
Beauty, for its own sake, supreme and unconditioned, charmed her
primarily and to the end. Her restless spirit found repose in the pagan
idea,—the absolute unity and identity of man with nature, as symbol-
ized in the Greek myths, where every natural force becomes a person,
and where, in turn, persons pass with equal readiness and freedom
back into nature again.
In this connection a name would suggest itself even if it did not
appear,—Heine the Greek, Heine the Jew, Heine the Romanticist, as
Emma Lazarus herself has styled him; and already in this early volume
of hers we have trace of the kinship and affinity that afterwards so
plainly declared itself. Foremost among the translations are a number
of his songs, rendered with a finesse and a literalness that are rarely
1
 See "Clytie," 41.
294 APPENDIX A
combined. Four years later, at the age of twenty-one, she published
her second volume, "Admetus and Other Poems," which at once took
rank as literature both in America and England, and challenged
comparison with the work of established writers. Of classic themes
we have "Admetus" and "Orpheus," and of romantic the legend of
Tannhauser
1
 and of the saintly Lohengrin. All are treated with an
artistic finish that shows perfect mastery of her craft, without detract-
ing from the freshness and flow of her inspiration. While sounding no
absolutely new note in the world, she yet makes us aware of a talent
of unusual distinction, and a highly endowed nature,—a sort of tact
of sentiment and expression, an instinct of the true and beautiful, and
that quick intuition which is like second-sight in its sensitiveness to
apprehend and respond to external stimulus. But it is not the purely
imaginative poems in this volume that most deeply interest us. We
come upon experience of life in these pages; not in the ordinary
sense, however, of outward activity and movement, but in the hidden
undercurrent of being. [...] ["Epochs"] marks a pivotal moment in
her life. Difficult to analyze, difficult above all to convey, if we would
not encroach upon the domain of private and personal experience,
is the drift of this poem, or rather cycle of poems, that ring through-
out with a deeper accent and a more direct appeal than has yet made
itself felt. It is the drama of the human soul,—"the mystic winged and
flickering butterfly," "flitting between earth and sky," in its passage
from birth to death.
A golden morning of June! [excerpts from "Youth"] Such is
youth, a June day, fair and fresh and tender with dreams and long-
ing and vague desire.The morn lingers and passes, but the noon has
not reached its height before the clouds begin to rise, the sunshine
dies, the air grows thick and heavy, the lightnings flash, the thunder
breaks among the hills, rolls and gathers and grows, until [final
couplet from "Storm"].
Now we have the phases of the soul,—the shock and surprise of
grief in the face of the world made desolate. Loneliness and despair
for a space, and then, like stars in the night, the new births of the
spirit, the wonderful outcoming from sorrow: the mild light of
I
A thirteenth-century German poet who became the subject of popular legends.
Tannhauser was a favorite figure in nineteenth-century romantic art, including
Lazarus s long poem of the same name, Wagner's famous opera, as well as poems by
Heinrich Heine, William Morris, and Algernon Charles Swinburne.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 295
patience at first; hope and faith kindled afresh in the very jaws of evil;
the new meaning and worth of life beyond sorrow, beyond joy; and
finally duty, the holiest word of all, that leads at last to victory and
peace. The poem rounds and completes itself with the close of "the
long, rich day," and the release of [final four lines from "Peace"].
We have dwelt at some length upon this poem, which seems to
us, in a certain sense, subjective and biographical; but upon closer
analysis there is still another conclusion to arrive at. In "Epochs" we
have, doubtless, the impress of a calamity brought very near to the
writer, and profoundly working upon her sensibilities; not however
by direct, but by reflex action, as it were, and through sympathetic
emotion,—the emotion of the deeply-stirred spectator, of the artist,
the poet who lives in the lives of others, and makes their joys and
their sorrows his own.
Before dismissing this volume we may point out another clue as
to the shaping of mind and character. The poem of "Admetus" is
dedicated "to my friend Ralph Waldo Emerson." Emma Lazarus was
between seventeen and eighteen years of age when the writings of
Emerson fell into her hands, and it would be difficult to over-esti-
mate the impression produced upon her. As she afterwards wrote:
"To how many thousand youthful hearts has not his word been the
beacon—nay, more, the guiding star—that led them safely through
periods of mental storm and struggle!"
1
 Of no one is this more true
than of herself. Left, to a certain extent, without compass or guide,
without any positive or effective religious training, this was the first
great moral revelation of her life. We can easily realize the chaos and
ferment of an overstimulated brain, steeped in romantic literature,
and given over to the wayward leadings of the imagination. Who can
tell what is true, what is false, in a world where fantasy is as real as
fact? Emerson's word fell like truth itself, "a shaft of light shot from
the zenith," a golden rule of thought and action.
2
 His books were
bread and wine to her, and she absorbed them into her very being.
She felt herself invincibly drawn to the master, "that fount of wisdom
and goodness," and it was her great privilege during these years to
be brought into personal relations with him.
3
 From the first he
showed her a marked interest and sympathy, which became for her
"Emerson's Personality," 257.
2
 "Emerson's Personality," 25 8.
3 "Emerson's Personality," 257.
296 APPENDIX A
i 1
one of the most valued possessions of her life. He criticised her work
with the fine appreciation and discrimination that made him quick
to discern the quality of her talent as well as of her personality, and
he was no doubt attracted by her almost transparent sincerity and
singleness of soul, as well as by the simplicity and modesty that would
have been unusual even in a person not gifted. He constituted
himself, in a way, her literary mentor, advised her as to the books she
should read and the attitude of mind she should cultivate. For some
years he corresponded with her very faithfully; his letters are full of
noble and characteristic utterances, and give evidence of a warm
regard that in itself was a stimulus and a high incentive. But encour-
agement even from so illustrious a source failed to elate the young
poetess, or even to give her a due sense of the importance and value
of her work, or the dignity of her vocation. We have already alluded
to her modesty, but there was something more than modesty in her
unwillingness to assert herself or claim any prerogative,—something
even morbid and exaggerated, which we know not how to define,
whether as over-sensitiveness or indifference. Once finished, the heat
and glow of composition spent, her writings apparently ceased to
interest her. She often resented any allusion to them on the part of
intimate friends, and the public verdict as to their excellence could
not reassure or satisfy her.The explanation is not far, perhaps, to seek.
Was it not the "Ewig-Weibliche"
1
 that allows no prestige but its
own? Emma Lazarus was a true woman, too distinctly feminine to
wish to be exceptional, or to stand alone and apart, even by virtue
of superiority.
A word now as to her life and surroundings. She was one of a
family of seven, and her parents were both living. Her winters were
passed in New York, and her summers by the sea. In both places her
life was essentially quiet and retired. The success of her book had
been mainly in the world of letters. In no wise tricked out to catch
the public eye, her writings had not yet made her a conspicuous
figure, but were destined slowly to take their proper place and give
her the rank that she afterwards held.
For some years now almost everything that she wrote was
published in "Lippincott's Magazine," then edited by John Foster
Kirk, and we shall still find in her poems the method and move-
ment of her life. Nature is still the fount and mirror, reflecting, and
1
 Eternal-female (German).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 297
again reflected, in the soul. We have picture after picture, almost to
satiety, until we grow conscious of a lack of substance and body and
of vital play to the thought, as though the brain were spending itself
in dreamings and reverie, the heart feeding upon itself, and the life
choked by its own fullness without due outlet. Happily, however,
the heavy cloud of sadness has lifted, and we feel the subsidence of
waves after a storm. [...]
"Phantasies" (after Robert Schumann) is the most complete and
perfect poem of this period. Like "Epochs," it is a cycle of poems,
and the verse has caught the very trick of music,—alluring, baffling
and evasive. This time we have the landscape of the night, the glam-
our of moon and stars,—pictures half real and half unreal, mystic
imaginings, fancies, dreams, and the enchantment of "faerie," and
throughout the unanswered cry, the eternal "Wherefore" of destiny.
Dawn ends the song with a fine clear note, the return of day, night's
misty phantoms rolled away, and the world itself, again green,
sparkling and breathing freshness.
In 1874 she published "Alide," a romance in prose drawn from
Goethe's autobiography.
1
 [...]
About this time occurred the death of her mother, the first break
in the home and family circle. In August of 1876 she made a visit to
Concord, at the Emersons', memorable enough for her to keep a
journal and note down every incident and detail.Very touching to
read now, in its almost childlike simplicity is this record of "persons
that pass and shadows that remain." Mr. Emerson himself meets her
at the station, and drives with her in his little one-horse wagon to
his home, the gray square house, with dark green blinds, set amidst
noble trees. A glimpse of the family,—"the stately, white-haired Mrs.
Emerson, and the beautiful, faithful Ellen, whose figure seems always
to stand by the side of her august father." Then the picture of
Concord itself, lovely and smiling, with its quiet meadows, quiet
slopes, and quietest of rivers. She meets the little set of Concord
people: Mr. Alcott, for whom she does not share Mr. Emerson's
enthusiasm; and William Ellery Channing, whose figure stands out
like a gnarled and twisted scrub-oak,—a pathetic, impossible crea-
ture, whose cranks and oddities were submitted to on account of an
1
 Lazarus's only novel, Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1874),
is based on a section of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Aus meinem Leben, Dichtung
und Wahrheit [From My Life, Poetry and Truth] (1811-22).
298 APPENDIX A
innate nobility of character.
I
 "Generally crabbed and reticent with
strangers, he took a liking to me," says Emma Lazarus. "The bond of
our sympathy was my admiration for Thoreau, whose memory he
actually worships, having been his constant companion in his best
days, and his daily attendant in the last years of illness and heroic
suffering. I do not know whether I was most touched by the thought
of the unique, lofty character that had inspired this depth and fervor
of friendship, or by the pathetic constancy and pure affection of the
poor, desolate old man before me, who tried to conceal his tender-
ness and sense of irremediable loss by a show of grufrhess and philos-
ophy. He never speaks of Thoreau's death," she says," but always
'Thoreau s loss,' or 'when I lost Mr. Thoreau,' or 'when Mr. Thoreau
went away from Concord;' nor would he confess that he missed him,
for there was not a day, an hour, a moment, when he did not feel that
his friend was still with him and had never left him. And yet a day
or two after," she goes on to say, "when I sat with him in the sunlit
wood, looking at the gorgeous blue and silver summer sky, he turned
to me and said: 'Just half of the world died for me when I lost Mr.
Thoreau. None of it looks the same as when I looked at it with
him.'... He took me through the woods and pointed out to me every
spot visited and described by his friend. Where the hut stood is a little
pile of stones, and a sign, 'Site of Thoreau s Hut,' and a few steps
beyond is the pond with thickly-wooded shores,—everything
exquisitely peaceful and beautiful in the afternoon light, and not a
sound to be heard except the crickets or the 'z-ing' of the locusts
which Thoreau has described. Farther on he pointed out to me, in
the distant landscape, a low roof, the only one visible, which was the
roof ofThoreau's birthplace. He had been over there many times, he
said, since he lost Mr. Thoreau, but had never gone in,—he was afraid
it might look lonely! But he had often sat on a rock in front of the
house and looked at it." On parting from his young friend, Mr.
Channing gave her a package, which proved to be a copy of his own
book on Thoreau, and the pocket compass which Thoreau carried
to the Maine woods and on all his excursions. Before leaving the
Emersons she received the proof-sheets of her drama of "The
Spagnoletto," which was being printed for private circulation. She
showed them to Mr. Emerson, who had expressed a wish to see
1
 Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), a Concord resident, educator, philosopher, and
father of novelist Louisa May Alcott. William Ellery Channing (1818-1901), Concord
poet and close friend and biographer of Henry David Thoreau.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 299
them, and, after reading them, he gave them back to her with the
comment that they were "good." She playfully asked him if he would
not give her a bigger word to take home to the family. He laughed,
and said he did not know of any; but he went on to tell her that he
had taken it up, not expecting to read it through, and had not been
able to put it down. Every word and line told of richness in the
poetry, he said, and as far as he could judge the play had great
dramatic opportunities. Early in the autumn "The Spagnoletto"
appeared,—a tragedy in five acts, the scene laid in Italy, 1655. [...]
In 1881 appeared the translation of Heine's poems and ballads,
which was generally accepted as the best version of that untranslat-
able poet. Very curious is the link between that bitter, mocking,
cynic spirit and the refined, gentle spirit of Emma Lazarus. Charmed
by the magic of his verse, the iridescent play of his fancy, and the
sudden cry of the heart piercing through it all, she is as yet unaware
or only vaguely conscious of the real bond between them: the
sympathy in the blood, the deep, tragic, Judaic passion of eighteen
hundred years that was smouldering in her own heart, soon to break
out and change the whole current of her thought and feeling.
Already, in 1879, the storm was gathering.
1
 In a distant province
of Russia at first, then on the banks of the Volga, and finally in
Moscow itself, the old cry was raised, the hideous mediaeval charge
revived, and the standard of persecution unfurled against the Jews.
Province after province took it up. In Bulgaria, Servia, and, above
all, Roumania, where, we were told, the sword of the Czar had been
drawn to protect the oppressed, Christian atrocities took the place
of Moslem atrocities, and history turned a page backward into the
dark annals of violence and crime. And not alone in despotic Russia,
but in Germany, the seat of modern philosophic thought and
culture, the rage of Anti-Semitism broke out and spread with fatal
ease and potency. In Berlin itself tumults and riots were threatened.
We in America could scarcely comprehend the situation or credit
the reports, and for a while we shut our eyes and ears to the facts;
but we were soon rudely awakened from our insensibility, and
forced to face the truth. It was in England that the voice was first
raised in behalf of justice and humanity. In January, 1881 [sic], there
appeared in the "London Times" a series of articles, carefully
i
A reference to the persecution of Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe in 1879 and
through the early i88os. For more on the pogroms, see Appendix D.
300 APPENDIX A
compiled on the testimony of eye-witnesses, and confirmed by offi-
cial documents, records, etc., giving an account of events that had
been taking place in southern and western Russia during a period
of nine months, between April and December of 1880 [sic].
1
 We do
not need to recall the sickening details. The headings will suffice:
outrage, murder, arson, and pillage, and the result,—100,000 Jewish
families made homeless and destitute, and nearly $100,000,000
worth of property destroyed. Nor need we recall the generous
outburst of sympathy and indignation from America. "It is not that
it is the oppression of Jews by Russia," said Mr. Evarts in the meet-
ing at Chickering Hall Wednesday evening, February 4 [sic]; "it is
that it is the oppression of men and women by men and women,
and we are men and women."
2
 So spoke civilized Christendom,
and for Judaism,—who can describe that thrill of brotherhood,
quickened anew, the immortal pledge of the race, made one again
through sorrow? For Emma Lazarus it was a trumpet call that awoke
slumbering and unguessed echoes. All this time she had been seek-
ing heroic ideals in alien stock, soulless and far removed; in pagan
mythology and mystic, mediaeval Christianity, ignoring her very
birthright,—the majestic vista of the past, down which, "high above
flood and fire," had been conveyed the precious scroll of the Moral
Law. Hitherto Judaism had been a dead letter to her. Of Portuguese
descent, her family had always been members of the oldest and most
orthodox congregation of New York, where strict adherence to
custom and ceremonial was the watchword of faith; but it was only
during her childhood and earliest years that she attended the syna-
gogue, and conformed to the prescribed rites and usages which she
had now long since abandoned as obsolete and having no bearing
on modern life. Nor had she any great enthusiasm for her own
people. As late as April, 1882, she published in "The Century
Magazine" an article written probably some months before, enti-
tled "Was the Earl of Beaconsfield a Representative Jew?" in which
she is disposed to accept as the type of the modern Jew the bril-
liant, successful, but not over-scrupulous chevalier d'Industrie^ [...]
1
 Josephine Lazarus's dates are slightly off. See "The Persecution of the Jews in Russia,"
in Appendix D.
2
 See "The Hebrews in Russia," The New-York Times (2 Feb. 1882): 8.
3 Earl of Beaconsfield: Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81), prime minister of Great Britain
(1868,1874-80); chevalier d'industrie:"A man who lives by his wits and calls himself a
gentleman" (E. Cobham Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable).
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 301
By a curious, almost fateful juxtaposition, in the same number of
the magazine appeared Madame Ragozin's defense of Russian
barbarity,
1
 and in the following (May) number Emma Lazarus s
impassioned appeal and reply, "Russian Christianity versus Modern
Judaism." From this time dated the crusade that she undertook in
behalf of her race, and the consequent expansion of all her facul-
ties, the growth of spiritual power which always ensues when a great
cause is espoused and a strong conviction enters the soul. Her verse
rang out as it had never rung before,—a clarion note, calling a
people to heroic action and unity, to the consciousness and fulfill-
ment of a grand destiny. [...] [citations of "The Crowing of the Red
Cock," "The Banner of the Jew," "Rosh Hashanah," "The Feast of
Lights," and "The New Ezekiel."]
Her whole being renewed and refreshed itself at its very source.
She threw herself into the study of her race, its language, literature,
and history.
Breaking the outward crust, she pierced to the heart of the faith
and "the miracle" of its survival. What was it other than the ever-
present, ever-vivifying spirit itself, which cannot die,—the religious
and ethical zeal which fires the whole history of the people, and of
which she herself felt the living glow within her own soul? She had
come upon the secret and the genius of Judaism,—that absolute
interpenetration and transfusion of spirit with body and substance
which, taken literally, often reduces itself to a question of food and
drink, a dietary regulation, and again, in proper splendor, incarnates
itself and shines out before humanity in the prophets, teachers, and
saviors of mankind.
Those were busy, fruitful years for Emma Lazarus, who worked,
not with the pen alone, but in the field of practical and beneficent
activity. For there was an immense task to accomplish. The tide of
immigration had set in, and ship after ship came laden with hunted
human beings flying from their fellow-men, while all the time, like
a tocsin, rang the terrible story of cruelty and persecution,—horrors
that the pen refuses to dwell upon. By hundreds and thousands they
flocked upon our shores,—helpless, innocent victims of injustice
and oppression, panic-stricken in the midst of strange and utterly
new surroundings.
1
 See Mme. Z. Ragozin, "Russian Jews and Gentiles. From a Russian Point ofView,"
in Appendix D.
302 APPENDIX A
Emma Lazarus came into personal contact with these people,
and visited them in their refuge on Wards Island. * While under the
influence of all the emotions aroused by this great crisis in the
history of her race, she wrote the "Dance to Death," a drama of
persecution of the twelfth century, founded upon authentic
records,—unquestionably her finest work in grasp and scope, and,
above all, in moral elevation and purport. The scene is laid in
Nordhausen, a free city ofThuringia, where the Jews, living, as they
deemed, in absolute security and peace, were caught up in the wave
of persecution that swept over Europe at that time. Accused of
poisoning the wells and causing the pestilence, or black death, as it
was called, they were condemned to be burned.
We do not here intend to enter upon a critical or literary analy-
sis of the play, or to point out dramatic merits or defects, but we
should like to make its readers feel with us the holy ardor and
impulse of the writer and the spiritual import of the work. The
action is without surprise, the doom fixed from the first; but so
glowing is the canvas with local and historic color, so vital and
intense the movement, so resistless the "internal evidence," if we
may call it thus, penetrating its very substance and form, that we are
swept along as by a wave of human sympathy and grief. [...]
The "Dance to Death" was published, along with other poems and
translations from the Hebrew poets of mediaeval Spain, in a small
volume entitled "Songs of a Semite."The tragedy was dedicated, "In
profound veneration and respect to the memory of George Eliot, the
illustrious writer who did most among the artists of our day towards
elevating and ennobling the spirit of Jewish nationality."
For this was the idea that had caught the imagination of Emma
Lazarus,—a restored and independent nationality and repatriation
in Palestine, [excerpt on Eliot from "The Jewish Problem."]
In November of 1882 appeared her first "Epistle to the
Hebrews,"—one of a series of articles written for the "American
Hebrew," published weekly through several months. Addressing
herself now to a Jewish audience, she sets forth without reserve her
views and hopes for Judaism, now passionately urging its claims and
its high ideals, and again dispassionately holding up the mirror for
the shortcomings and peculiarities of her race. [...]
1
 Located at the north end of the East River, this New York city island was home to
an immigrant station, a hospital for immigrants, and an insane asylum.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 303
Her interest in Jewish affairs was at its height when she planned
a visit abroad, which had been a long-cherished dream, and May 15,
1883, she sailed for England, accompanied by a younger sister. We
have difficulty in recognizing the tragic priestess we have been
portraying in the enthusiastic child of travel who seems new-born
into a new world. From the very outset she is in a maze of wonder
and delight. At sea she writes:—
"Our last day on board ship was a vision of beauty from morning
till night,—the sea like a mirror and the sky dazzling with light. In
the afternoon we passed a ship in full sail, near enough to exchange
salutes and cheers. After tossing about for six days without seeing a
human being, except those on our vessel, even this was a sensation.
Then an hour or two before sunset came the great sensation of—
land! At first, nothing but a shadow on the far horizon, like the ghost
of a ship; two or three widely scattered rocks which were the
promontories of Ireland, and sooner than we expected we were
steaming along low-lying purple hills. ["]
The journey to Chester gives her "the first glimpse of mellow
England,"—a surprise which is yet no surprise, so well known and
familiar does it appear. Then Chester, with its quaint, picturesque
streets, "like the scene of a Walter Scott novel, the cathedral planted
in greenness, and the clear, gray river where a boatful of scarlet
dragoons goes gliding by." Everything is a picture for her special
benefit. She "drinks in, at every sense, the sights, sounds, and smells,
and the unimaginable beauty of it all." Then the bewilderment of
London, and a whirl of people, sights, and impressions. She was
received with great distinction by the Jews, and many of the lead-
ing men among them warmly advocated her views. But it was not
alone from her own people that she met with exceptional consid-
eration. She had the privilege of seeing many of the most eminent
personages of the day, all of whom honored her with special and
personal regard. There was, no doubt, something that strongly
attracted and attached people to her at this time,—the force of her
intellect at once made itself felt, while at the same time the unal-
tered simplicity and modesty of her character, and her readiness and
freshness of enthusiasm, kept her still almost like a child.
She makes a flying visit to Paris, where she happens to be on the
I4th of July, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastile, and of
304 APPENDIX A
the beginning of the republic; she drives out to Versailles, "that
gorgeous shell of royalty, where the crowd who celebrate the birth
of the republic wander freely through the halls and avenues, and into
the most sacred rooms of the king....There are ruins on every side
in Paris," she says; "ruins of the Commune, or the Siege, or the
Revolution; it is terrible—it seems as if the city were seared with
fire and blood."
Such was Paris to her then, and she hastens back to her beloved
London, starting from there on the tour through England that has
been mapped out for her. "A Day in Surrey with William Morris,"
published in "The Century Magazine," describes her visit to Merton
Abbey, the old Norman monastery, converted into a model factory
by the poet-humanitarian, who himself received her as his guest,
conducted her all over the picturesque building and garden, and
explained to her his views of art and his aims for the people.
She drives through Kent, "where the fields, valleys, and slopes are
garlanded with hops and ablaze with scarlet poppies." Then
Canterbury, Windsor, and Oxford, Stratford, Warwick, the valley of
the Wye, Wells, Exeter, and Salisbury,—cathedral after cathedral.
Back to London, and then north through York, Durham, and
Edinburgh, and on the I5th of September she sails for home. We
have merely named the names, for it is impossible to convey an idea
of the delight and importance of this trip, "a crescendo of enjoy-
ment," as she herself calls it. Long after, in strange, dark hours of
suffering, these pictures of travel arose before her, vivid and tragic
even in their hold and spell upon her.
The winter of 1883-84 was not especially productive. She wrote
a few reminiscences of her journey and occasional poems on Jewish
themes, which appeared in the "American Hebrew;" but for the
most part she gave herself up to quiet retrospect and enjoyment
with her friends of the life she had had a glimpse of, and the expe-
rience she had stored,—a restful, happy period. In August of the
same year she was stricken with a severe and dangerous malady, from
which she slowly recovered, only to go through a terrible ordeal
and affliction. Her father's health, which had long been failing, now
broke down completely, and the whole winter was one long strain
of acute anxiety, which culminated in his death, in March, 1885. The
blow was a crushing one for Emma.Truly, the silver cord was loosed,
and the golden bowl was broken. Life lost its meaning and its
charm. Her father's sympathy and pride in her work had been her
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 305
chief incentive and ambition, and had spurred her on when her own
confidence and spirit failed. Never afterwards did she find complete
and spontaneous expression. She decided to go abroad again as the
best means of regaining composure and strength, and sailed once
more in May for England, where she was welcomed now by the
friends she had made, almost as to another home. She spent the
summer very quietly at Richmond, an ideally beautiful spot in
Yorkshire, where she soon felt the beneficial influence of her peace-
ful surroundings. "The very air seems to rest one here," she writes;
and inspired by the romantic loveliness of the place, she even
composed the first few chapters of a novel, begun with a good deal
of dash and vigor, but soon abandoned, for she was still struggling
with depression and gloom.
"I have neither ability, energy, nor purpose," she writes. "It is impos-
sible to do anything, so I am forced to set it aside for the present;
whether to take it up again or not in the future remains to be seen."
In the autumn she goes on the Continent, visiting the Hague,
which "completely fascinates" her, and where she feels "stronger and
more cheerful" than she has "for many a day"Then Paris, which this
time amazes her "with its splendor and magnificence. All the ghosts
of the Revolution are somehow laid," she writes, and she spends six
weeks here enjoying to the full the gorgeous autumn weather, the
sights, the picture galleries, the bookshops, the whole brilliant
panorama of the life; and early in December she starts for Italy.
And now once more we come upon that keen zest of enjoy-
ment, that pure desire and delight of the eyes, which are the prerog-
ative of the poet,—and Emma Lazarus was a poet. The beauty of
the world,—what a rapture and intoxication it is, and how it bursts
upon her in the very land of beauty, "where Dante and where
Petrarch trod!"A magic glow colors it all; no mere blues and greens
any more, but a splendor of purple and scarlet and emerald; "each
tower, castle, and village shining like a jewel; the olive, the fig, and
at your feet the roses, growing in mid-December." A day in Pisa
seems like a week, so crowded is it with sensations and unforget-
table pictures. Then a month in Florence, which is still more
entrancing with its inexhaustible treasures of beauty and art; and
finally Rome, the climax of it all,—
"wiping out all other places and impressions, and opening a whole
new world of sensations. I am wild with the excitement of this
306 APPENDIX A
tremendous place. I have been here a week, and have seen the
Vatican and the Capitoline Museums, and the Sistine Chapel, and
St. Peter s, besides the ruins on the streets and on the hills, and the
graves of Shelley and Keats.
"It is all heart-breaking. I don't only mean those beautiful graves
overgrown with acanthus and violets, but the mutilated arches and
columns and dumb appealing fragments looming up in the glow-
ing sunshine under the Roman blue sky."
True to her old attractions, it is pagan Rome that appeals to her
most strongly,—
"and the far-away past, that seems so sad and strange and near. I am
even out of humor with pictures; a bit of broken stone or of a bas-
relief, or a Corinthian column standing out against this lapis-lazuli
sky, or a tremendous arch, are the only things I can look at for the
moment,—except the Sistine Chapel, which is as gigantic as the
rest, and forces itself upon you with equal might."
Already, in February, spring is in the air; "the almond-trees are in
bloom, violets cover the grass, and oh! the divine, the celestial, the
unheard-of beauty of it all!" It is almost a pang to her, "with its
strange mixture of longing and regret and delight," and in the midst
of it she says, "I have to exert all my strength not to lose myself in
morbidness and depression."
Early in March she leaves Rome, consoled with the thought of
returning the following winter. In June she was in England again,
and spent the summer at Malvern. Disease was no doubt already
beginning to prey upon her, for she was oppressed at times by a
langour and heaviness amounting almost to lethargy. When she
returned to London, however, in September, she felt quite well
again, and started for another tour in Holland, which she enjoyed
as much as before. She then settled in Paris to await the time when
she could leave for Italy. But she was attacked at once with grave
and alarming symptoms, that betokened a fatal end to her malady.
Entirely ignorant, however, of the danger that threatened her, she
kept up courage and hope, made daily plans for the journey, and
looked forward to setting out at any moment. But the weeks passed
and the months also; slowly and gradually the hope faded.The jour-
ney to Italy must be given up; she was not in condition to be
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 307
brought home, and she reluctantly resigned herself to remain where
she was and "convalesce," as she confidently believed, in the spring.
Once again came the analogy, which she herself pointed out now,
to Heine on his mattress-grave in Paris. She, too, the last time she
went out, dragged herself to the Louvre, to the feet of the Venus,
"the goddess without arms, who could not help."
1
 Only her
indomitable will and intense desire to live seemed to keep her alive.
She sunk to a very low ebb, but, as she herself expressed it, she
"seemed to have always one little window looking out into life,"
and in the spring she rallied sufficiently to take a few drives and to
sit on the balcony of her apartment. She came back to life with a
feverish sort of thirst and avidity. "No such cure for pessimism," she
says, "as a severe illness; the simplest pleasures are enough,—to
breathe the air and see the sun."
Many plans were made for leaving Paris, but it was finally
decided to risk the ocean voyage and bring her home, and accord-
ingly she sailed July 23d, arriving in New York on the last day of
that month.
She did not rally after this; and now began her long agony, full
of every kind of suffering, mental and physical. Only her intellect
seemed kindled anew, and none but those who saw her during the
last supreme ordeal can realize that wonderful flash and fire of the
spirit before its extinction. Never did she appear so brilliant. Wasted
to a shadow, and between acute attacks of pain, she talked about art,
poetry, the scenes of travel, of which her brain was so full, and the
phases of her own condition, with an eloquence for which even
those who knew her best were quite unprepared. Every faculty
seemed sharpened and every sense quickened as the "strong deliver-
ess" approached, and the ardent soul was released from the frame
that could no longer contain it.
We cannot restrain a feeling of suddenness and incompleteness
and a natural pang of wonder and regret for a life so richly and so
vitally endowed thus cut off in its prime. But for us it is not fitting
to question or repine, but rather to rejoice in the rare possession that
we hold. What is any life, even the most rounded and complete, but
a fragment and a hint? What Emma Lazarus might have accom-
plished, had she been spared, it is idle and even ungrateful to spec-
ulate. What she did accomplish has real and peculiar significance. It
1
 See "The Venus of the Louvre," 239, and "The Poet Heine," 281-88.
308 APPENDIX A
is the privilege of a favored few that every fact and circumstance of
their individuality shall add lustre and value to what they achieve.
To be born a Jewess was a distinction for Emma Lazarus, and she in
turn conferred distinction upon her race. To be born a woman also
lends a grace and a subtle magnetism to her influence. Nowhere is
there contradiction or incongruity. Her works bear the imprint of
her character, and her character of her works; the same directness
and honesty, the same limpid purity of tone, and the same atmos-
phere of things refined and beautiful. The vulgar, the false, and the
ignoble,—she scarcely comprehended them, while on every side she
was open and ready to take in and respond to whatever can adorn
and enrich life. Literature was no mere "profession" for her, which
shut out other possibilities; it was only a free, wide horizon and
background for culture. She was passionately devoted to music,
which inspired some of her best poems; and during the last years of
her life, in hours of intense physical suffering, she found relief and
consolation in listening to the strains of Bach and Beethoven.When
she went abroad, painting was revealed to her, and she threw herself
with the same ardor and enthusiasm into the study of the great
masters; her last work (left unfinished) was a critical analysis of the
genius and personality of Rembrandt.
And now, at the end, we ask, Has the grave really closed over all
these gifts? Has that eager, passionate striving ceased, that hunger
and thirst which we call life, and "is the rest silence?"
Who knows? But would we break, if we could, that repose, that
silence and mystery and peace everlasting?
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 309
Appendix B: Selections from the Correspondence
[The following excerpts provide a taste of Lazarus s ideas about
literature and her literary milieu as well as a sense of the range
of writers (like Emerson, Burroughs, and Lowell), critics and
editors (Higginson, Stedman, and Cowen), and friends (Gilder,
Ward, and Lathrop) with whom she corresponded. In these selec-
tions, one can also trace the changing nature of her relationship
with Emerson—from its beginning when he enthusiastically
offered to serve as her mentor, through her anger and disap-
pointment at being excluded from his Parnassus (1874) anthol-
ogy, to their reconciliation, and her defense of him against
Arnolds criticism in the mid-i88os.]
1. Ralph Waldo Emerson, to Emma Lazarus, 14 April 1868,
from Rusk, 4.
[O]n poetry there is so much to say, that I know not where to begin,
& really wish to reply by a treatise of thirty sheets. I should like to
be appointed your professor, you being required to attend the whole
term. I should be very stern & exigeant, & insist on large readings
& writings, & from haughty points of view. For a true lover of
poetry must fly wide for his game, &, though the spirit of poetry is
universal & is nearest, yet the successes of poets are scattered in all
times & nations, & only in single passages, or single lines, or even
words; nay, the best are sometimes in writers of prose.
2. Emma Lazarus, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 27 June 1868,
from Houghton Library, Harvard University (bMS Am 1280
[1862]).
I have dismissed printed books, not from any such high cause as you
advise, but because I have a nobler, vaster more suggestive book
lying all around me, with leaves ever open inviting me to study &
admire & love. I have only been readingThoreaus Concord River
1
& Letters, & a poem or two of Walt Whitman—but these writers
1
 Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849).
310 APPENDIX B
are so in harmony with Nature that they do not take me away from
the scene. I no longer wonder at your admiration ofThoreau—what
a noble, true, bold spirit his must have been—or rather is—for he
is now more alive to me than many who are living near me.
3. Ralph Waldo Emerson, to Emma Lazarus, 19 Nov. 1868,
from Rusk, 9.
You have written a noble poem ["Admetus"], which I cannot enough
praise. You have hid yourself from me until now, for the merits of the
preceding poems did not unfold this fulness & high equality of power.
I shall not stop to criticise, more than to say that it is too good than
that the reader should feel himself detained by speeches a line too long.
And the only suggestion I dare offer is that you shall read for the tone
of Teutonic humanity Act II. Scene i. of "Measure for Measure," as
the only corrective of your classic sympathies.
4. Emma Lazarus, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 22 Nov. 1868,
from Houghton Library, Harvard University (bMS Am 1280
[1863]).
I wish I could express to you my thankfulness & pleasure on receiv-
ing your letter, & knowing with what patience, indulgence & kind-
ness you had read my unworthy verses. I was as much astonished as
delighted at the estimate you were good enough to set upon them,
& if I had not known that you were one whose "highest praising
was not flattering & whose plainest advice was a kind of praising,"
I should have been tempted to disbelieve & disavow all your
encouraging enthusiasm. I feel so underserving [sic] when I read
your letter, that your praise, far from satisfying me with what I have
accomplished, will be but an incentive & a spur to me, to strive
towards something higher & nobler, which I myself, may not think
wholly unworthy of your approbation. Ever since I sent "Admetus"
to you I have regretted that I troubled you at a season when your
days must have been so fully occupied. At some future time when
you are perfectly at leisure, I shall take the liberty of sending you
some of my later pieces, & when you have seen these, I do not think
you will accuse me of having "too classical sympathies." I should
have been pleased if you had marked such passages in my poem as
you disapproved of, for I would like to correct it as much as is in
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 311
my power & make it as satisfactory to you as possible. I read as you
advised the scene in "Measure for Measure," which, familiar as it is,
has on each reading, a new & grander eloquence.
5. Emma Lazarus, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 27 Dec. 1874,
from Houghton Library, Harvard University (bMS Am 1280
[1866]).
I cannot resist the impulse of expressing to you my extreme disap-
pointment at finding you have so far modified the enthusiastic esti-
mate you held of my literary labors as to refuse me a place in the large
& miscellaneous collection of poems you have just published.
1
 I can
only consider this omission a public retraction of all the flattering opin-
ions & letters you have sent me, & I cannot in any degree reconcile it
with your numerous expressions of extravagant admiration. If I had
either done anything to forfeit your friendship, or neglected the proper
development & improvement of the gift you were pleased to rate so
highly, I might partly account for the unexpected withdrawal of your
interest in what I had already accomplished, but as I am innocent in
both respects the fact remains in inexplicable as it is disappointing.Ybur
favorable opinion having been confirmed by some of the best critics
of England and America, I felt as if I had won for myself by own efforts
a place in any collection of American poets, & I find myself treated
with absolute contempt in the very quarter where I had been encour-
aged to build my fondest hopes. This public neglect is in such direct
variance with the opinion you have expressed to me in private, that it
leaves me in utter bewilderment as to your real verdict.
6. Emma Lazarus, to Rabbi Gustav Gottheil,
2
 25 Feb.
[1877], from Gottheil, 63.
You need not reproach yourself with having "forced" upon me an
uncongenial work. I cheerfully offered to help you to the extent of
my ability, and was glad to prove to you that my interest and sympa-
1
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed., Parnassus (1874).
2
 Gustav Gottheil (1827-1903), a Reform rabbi at New York City's Temple Emanu-El,
had asked Lazarus to contribute translations for his hymnal, Hymns and Anthems,
Adapted for Jewish Worship (New York, 1887). The pieces she translated were
"Admonition" (241),"Meditations" (199-201), which is tided "Meditation on Death"
in Gottheil's volume, and "In the Night" (214-17).
312 APPENDIX B
thies were loyal to our race, although my religious convictions (if
they can be called) and the circumstances of my life have led me
somewhat apart from our people. I shall still be pleased to try a few
more translations, if you will send or bring me the original poems,
and if I may do them at my leisure.
7. John Burroughs,
1
 to Emma Lazarus, 29 Apr. 1878, from
Rusk, 24-25.
I think we have much in common & would get on famously
together. You may have heard that we had a plan to have Mr
Whitman come to New York to lecture about the middle of this
month. I had hoped to spend several days in New York then & to
have called on you at your house. But the lecture project is deferred
on account of Mr Whitmans ill health. I am hoping now to bring
it about in May as he thinks he will be able to come to time then
I saw him & spent a day & a night with him four weeks ago. I spoke
of you to him. He remembered your name and had read &
remarked some of your poems. They had arrested his attention,
which you may consider a compliment. I hope you have not been
disappointed in the prose of Two Rivulets', the Memoranda I think
especially large, simple, & heartful.
2
I hope also you are not judging yourself so harshly as you was. I
think you need above all things to cherish & encourage & insist
upon yourself.
8. Emma Lazarus, to Helena deKay Gilder,
3
 18 Aug. 1879,
from Young, 72-73.
I have paid a visit to my wise,... old friend Mr. Emerson who treats
me with an almost fatherly affection. Ellen
4
 asked me to spend a few
days with them in Concord, & I gladly availed myself of the invita-
tion. I found Mr. Emerson very sadly changed & much older than
1
 John Burroughs (1837-1921), author, naturalist, and friend ofWalt Whitman.
2
 Walt Whitman's Two Rivulets. Including Democratic Vistas, Centennial Songs, and Passage
to India (1876) included Two Rivulets and "Memoranda during the War."
3 Helena deKay Gilder (1848-1916), artist, Lazarus's close friend and frequent corre-
spondent, and wife of Richard Gilder, the editor of Scribner's Monthly and then
Century. For more on Helena deKay Gilder, see Young, 67-169.
4 Ellen Emerson (1839-1909), daughter of Lidian Jackson and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 313
when I saw him last but with the same wonderful benign dignity of
expression & bearing & the same sincere wisdom of thought as ever.
It is only his speech which seems to have failed—for his mind appears
clear & unclouded—the connection is broken between the idea &
the word. And the unconsciousness of his impaired faculties makes
him silent & sensitive. What do you think of the queer, crotechety
[sic] people who gravitate toward Concord? This year there is a more
extraordinary set than ever. Mr. Alcott has formed what he calls a
School of Philosophy
1
 & Platonists & Hegelians & all sorts of learned
pedants meet & discuss ... there to an audience assembled from all
parts & the way the most difficult problems of life are solved by these
half-cracked theorists who dogmatize about the immortal soul is
absolutely ... & made me at least doubt my own sanity. I met again
your old friend & devoted admirer Mr. George Bradford.
2
 [...] I saw
your brother Charlie
3
 the other day in town. It was refreshing to see
a Bohemian & pagan again after dwelling with the Puritans.
9. Emma Lazarus, to Edmund Clarence Stedman,*
[Summer 1881], from Schappes, 445-46.
I have been thinking a great deal over your "Poetry in America,"
 5
&
having been so frank with you, I feel it on my conscience to tell you
the one point on which I cannot quite agree with you. I do not think
the absence of a great national poet either in Colonial Revolutionary
days, or at the present time, can be adequately accounted for even by
the extremely adverse conditions which you state in so clear &
masterly a manner. These may explain the dearth of poets as a class, but
I do not think they would have any real weight with that altogether
phenomenal & divinely inspired being whom we think of as the great
1
 Led by Amos Bronson Alcott, the Concord School of Philosophy hosted from 1879
to 1888 annual summer sessions of formal lectures on philosophical and cultural topics
followed by discussions.
2
 George Partridge Bradford (1807-90), a resident of Concord, Emerson's half-uncle,
and a member of Brook Farm, a short-lived Transcendentalist commune.
3 Charles deKay, Helena deKay Gilder's brother and Lazarus's close friend. Bette Roth
Young speculates that Lazarus and deKay, a poet and editor, may have had a roman-
tic relationship. For more on deKay, see Young, especially 8,223 ni4.
4 Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908), poet, critic, and stockbroker. Stedman and
Lazarus were close friends, particularly from 1879 to 1881. See Stedman, "Emma
Lazarus," in Appendix C.
5 Stedman, "Poetry in America," Scribner's Monthly (Aug. 1881): 540-50.
314 APPENDIX B
poet—Dante, Shakespeare, Eschylus, Milton—etc. Now that Burns and
Scott have poetized all the Scotch legends, traditions & national Songs,
it is easy to say, these were ready at hand, waiting for their poet. But
how long did they wait! Until these clear-eyed seers were born, whoever
thought the rich patois of the grim old Highlander & the barbarous
music of the bagpipes could be associated in our mind with romance
& melody? I never have believed in the want of a theme—wherever
there is humanity, there is the theme for a great poem—
10. Emma Lazarus, to Rose Hawthorne Lathrop,
1
 14 Jan.
1882, Lathrop Papers.
I want to shake hands with you about Shelley; I, too, have always
revolted against the apotheosis of Shelley as a hyper-moral man—a
blameless saint, a sinless angel, too pure, too spiritual, too exquisite
for this gross world of ours. I have never been able to see, in reading
his life, on what his admirers set up this preposterous claim to super-
human virtue. I think of him as a misguided, unbalanced, danger-
ously fascinating man of very low principles in regard to women &
money—the two things which hightoned men are supposed to have
most honor about. A Philanthropist who did not remember to pay
his tradesmen's bills, & a saint who deserted his wife & children—
That he had noble aspirations, a soft heart, & dazzling genius I freely
admit—but I think the thing I resent about him is his being set up
as a pure & lily white contrast to the "wicked Byron"—who was a
better son, quite as good a husband, a more faithful lover to the only
woman who really sympathized with him, a kinder master to his
servants, & a far more practical worker for the Cause of Humanity
in his devotion to the Greek cause, than was ever Shelley with his
agitation pamphlets & his advocacy of Free Love. Can it be possible
that Mr. Leland
2
 has said—"All works based upon crime or un-
health are pernicious, & unliterary?" What is the theme of Hamlet,
but murder & insanity, of Macbeth, of Othello, but crime & brutal
crime? Is "Faust" unliterary? Are the Greek tragedies (some of them
based on unnamable [sic] sins) pernicious? The true difficulty I think,
1
 Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (1851-1926), author, daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Catholic nun and founder of an order devoted to care for those with incurable
cancer.
2
 Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903), writer and humorist most famous for his work
under the psuedonym Hans Breitmann.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 315
is in keeping our sense of proportion, & putting things in their right
places, as only the one or two masters of the world have been able
to do. That cool sanity of judgment & vision, is I think, the greatest
thing about Browning, who deals with such tragic passions—& yet
never loses his own intellectual balance & philosophical spirit. But
any theory that would banish crime from fiction would be about on
a par with one that would banish shadows from painting.
11. Emma Lazarus, to Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 23 Aug.
1882, Lathrop Papers.
I am going to undertake the study of Hebrew in the Fall, with a
very learned & intelligent old Orientalist
1
 who has offered to teach
me all he knows! The Jewish Question which I plunged into so
wrecklessly & impulsively last Spring has gradually absorbed more
& more of my mind & heart. It opens up such enormous vistas in
the Past & Future, & is so palpitatingly alive at the moment—being
treated with more or less ability & eloquence in almost every news-
paper & periodical you pick up—that it has about driven out of my
thought all other subjects. I have reached a point now where I must
know Hebrew, & I am constitutionally so indolent, that very system-
atic study is a little alarming to me.
12. Emma Lazarus, to Samuel Gray Ward,
2
 12 Oct. 1882, from
Houghton Library, Harvard University (bMS Am 1465 [810]).
Perhaps you are right about the "range of the mediaeval Hebrew
poets being too limited to awaken general interest"—but I must beg
you to remember the specimens I have translated are taken at
random, & bear no relation whatever to the immense treasure of
poetry that lies hidden in its original source—The three poets repre-
sented in my little collection
3
 have each a marked individuality, &
1
 Lazarus studied Hebrew with Louis Schnabel (1829-97), a writer and the superin-
tendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York. See Gottheil, 66; and Schappes,
419 nno.
2
 Samuel Gray Ward (1817-1907), New York financier, noted art patron, and Lazarus
family friend.
3 The three Hebrew poets included in Songs of a Semite are Solomon ibn Gabirol, Judah
Halevi, Moses ibn Ezra. See "Translations from the Hebrew Poets of Mediaeval Spain,"
198-218.
3l6 APPENDIX B
have by no means confined themselves to strictly religious poetry. I
am studying Hebrew, & hope soon to be able to appreciate them in
the original—then I shall be more competent to weigh the worth
of your objection.
13. Emma Lazarus, to Philip Cowen,
1
 5 May [1883], from
Schappes, 435.
The work I have done for the Jewish Cause seems to me painfully
insignificant & slight, compared with the generous sympathy and
encouragement I receive from my people. I can only hope by contin-
uing my efforts, to be some day, worthy of such kind words & deeds.
Have you any copies of the Songs of a Semite? If yes, I wish you
would please send me a dozen—I shall want to take a few away with
me—I enclose a stanza of poetry for next week s paper—It is from
some Spanish Hebrew poet, but I am sorry to say I do not know
which one.
2
 I have translated this from the original Hebrew—& so
am very proud of it as my first effort!
14. Emma Lazarus, to Helena deKay Gilder, 4 July 1883,
from Young, 109-110.
I left London yesterday & was really overwhelmed by the kindness
& marks of positive attention which I had received. [...] I have seen
so many beautiful houses & Studios, & been admitted into such
Sacred places including Browning's study & Morris's home—that I
am bewildered. [...] Annie
3
 & I became great friends with
Browning—I sat next to him at dinner on Friday, a 3 hour dinner,
when he talked with the most wonderful eloquence & picturesque-
ness—a stream of wit, reminiscences & anecdotes—music, poetry
& fun—He gave me in the most vivid way his recollections of Kean,
Mendelssohn, George Sand,W.S. Landor, & of his intimacy with the
Byron family, & talked in the frankest way about a hundred topics
of deep interest to me. He is a great enthusiast of the Jews, & I think
this may be the secret of his immense kindness to Annie & myself.
1
 Philip Cowen (1853-1943), founder and editor of The American Hebrew.
2
 The poem is "Consolation" (232), a translation of poem by Judah ben Solomon Al-
Harizi.
3 Lazarus's sister.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 317
He did for us what his oldest friends say he has never done to
them—he asked us to spend the afternoon on Saturday with him
& his sister, & he would show us his books, mss., relics of his wife,
pictures, etc.Well, I hardly need say we went, & I had a most memo-
rable visit—They live in a lovely little house by the Canal near the
Gosses'
1
—& he seemed altogether a different man from the
Browning of Society. A sad, joyless, old man—living only in the past,
for himself, & in the future for his son—whose art-work is his
greatest pride—He grew more & more pathetic, as he took out his
wife's precious little souvenirs & treasures, her Greek & Hebrew
books with marginal notes & comments in pencil upon every page,
his mss., letters & everything he thought could interest us—He gave
me his photograph, & wrote under it an affectionate inscription in
Hebrew, Sc after blessing & shaking hands with us again & again, said
goodbye. It was a most curious & intimate revelation & we were
almost as much surprised as touched.
15. James Russell Lowell, to Emma Lazarus, 17 Dec. 1883,
from Rusk, 74.
I must write again to say how much I liked your sonnet about the
Statue
2
—much better than I like the Statue itself. But your sonnet
gives its subject a raison d'etre which it wanted before quite as much
as it wants a pedestal. You have set it on a noble one, saying
admirably just the right word to be said, an achievement more ardu-
ous than that of the sculptor. I have just been writing a sonnet
myself & know how difficult a material one has to work in—how
much more difficult when the subject is prescribed & not chosen.
16. Emma Lazarus, to Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 29 Jan.
[1884], Lathrop Papers.
You ask me about Matthew Arnolds Lecture on Emerson
3
—I heard
it with great interest & enjoyment—While I did not agree with some
of his opinions, yet I admired extremely the well-ordered thought,
1
 Edmund and Nellie Epps Gosse, a British couple with whom Lazarus was friendly
during her European travels. Edmund Gosse (1849-1928) was a translator, poet, critic,
and a friend of Henry James.
2
 "The New Colossus," 233.
3 See "Critic and Poet" (234-35) and note i, p. 234.
3l8 APPENDIX B
the fluent, graceful style, & the charming tone of the whole. I am
disposed to value Emerson's poetry far more highly than Arnold
does—but in most other respects, I found myself fully in accord with
him—especially in the main point of considering Emerson rather as
a moral & spiritual influence than as a so-called literary man.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 319
Appendix C: Critical Response
[Although critics sometimes viewed her poetry as imitative, the
contemporary critical response to Lazarus s work was generally
favorable. Her poems were often praised for their intelligence
and emotional power.]
1. "Recent Poetry," The New-York Times (23 Feb.i867): 2.
The poems and translations by EMMA LAZARUS are chiefly remarkable
from the fact stated upon the tide-page of the volume, that they were
written by a girl—we beg pardon, by a young lady under seventeen,
and during the three years preceding her arrival at that age. Yet the
volume, which is a small octavo, contains no less than 300 well-filled
pages; and among the poems are quite passable translations from
HEINRICH HEINE, DUMAS,VICTOR HUGO, and it might be added, from
TENNYSON. It could not be expected that one so young could create
anything strikingly original herself, and it is easy to tell what authors
were her favorites before Miss LAZARUS began to write. Properly
restrained and guided, the precocity of which this volume is the fruit
might have produced creditable results; but this premature rushing into
print almost invariably proves fatal to the one who is persuaded into it.
2. "New Books," The Illustrated London News (14 Oct. 1871): 359.
Messrs. Hurd and Houghton, publishers, of New York , send us Admetus
and Other Poems by Emma Lazarus, printed at the Riverside Press,
Cambridge, near Boston. The authoress is a personal friend of
Emerson, as we learn from her dedication of one of these pieces; and
she has probably lived much under the influence of that select society
of refined and reflecting minds to which James Russell Lowell,
Longfellow, and the late Nathaniel Hawthorne have belonged. [...]
Mrs. or Miss Lazarus—for the American lady s position is quite
unknown to us—must be hailed by impartial literary criticism as a
poet of rare original power. She has unconsciously caught from admir-
ing perusal more, perhaps, of the style ofTennysons Arthurian Idylls,
1
1
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1859).
32O APPENDIX C
in her narrative and dramatic pieces, than would seem fitly to attend
the perfectly fresh and independent stream of her thought. The tone,
the phrases, the turns of melody in her blank-verse lines too often
remind us of the English master whom she follows in her craft of
rhythmic diction. But her conceptions of each theme, and the whole
compass of her ideas and emotions, differ essentially from those of
preceding or contemporary poets. [...]
[W]e prefer the shorter meditative poems in this volume, which
are composed in various forms of rhymed stanzas, to the ancient
stories told so impressively in the blank-verse compositions we have
noticed. We should like to dwell upon the verses "On a Tuft of
Grass," which are very touching. There is a series of little pictures,
called "Epochs," designed to illustrate the passing moods of the heart
and the transient aspects of nature, of human feeling and sky and
weather, the life and the landscape, mututally reflecting each other's
changes from day to day. Thus we have "Youth," "Regret,"
"Longing," and "Storm:" moods all finding their response in the
outward scene. These are followed by "Grief," "Acceptance,"
"Loneliness," "Sympathy," "Patience," "Hope," "Compensation,"
"Faith," "Work," "Victory," and "Peace; "which are moods rather of
the moral constitution, having less to do with answerable fits of
weather. For the truth of observation and description, in her views
of familiar natural objects, and for the exquisite finish of each
picture, with its appropriate expression of feeling, the first four
"Epochs" can hardly be overpraised. [...]
It will be no surprise to us, after the present volume, if she here-
after take a high place among the best poets in this age of our
common English tongue.
3. "Heine," The New-York Times (lojuly 1881): 10.
Not often does a poet find a translator who unites skill and practice
in versification with a nature peculiarly sympathetic to his. Miss
Lazarus has a fellow feeling for the poet whom Germans often rank
only second to Goethe which may go deeper than a mere admiration
for him as a poet and reach the underlying springs of sympathy of race
and religion.To speak of Heine and religion may seem to strain a word,
yet it is a fact that Heine's attitude toward religion is that of thousands
of enlightened Hebrews and Christians. He merely expressed after his
own caustic manner what others dare not confess. [...]
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 321
It is hard to choose from a volume of Heine what reads best or
what is fittest for quotation. He has an ugly habit of leading the
reader along flowery paths, and then suddenly bringing him up
before a pitful of horrors. His limpid verse is as innocent as a child—
until you get to the last line! Miss Lazarus has preserved better than
any other translator who comes to mind at the moment, the direct-
ness of statement which forms the capital charm of Heine's poetry.
4. "Songs of a Semite," The Jewish Chronicle [London] (20
Oct. 1882): 12.
[I]t is rare to meet the work of a lady who shares such remarkable
research in reading and rendering into English little appreciated and
practically unknown poetry, such as that of the Hebrew Poets of
mediaeval Spain. Her translations and imitations of Heine are excep-
tionally good. She has caught his manner of rhythmical, but rhyme-
less ballad-writing with a fidelity that can hardly be too highly
praised. [...] Following up this translation [of"Donna Clara"] by two
imitations of the German poet, founded on the same theme, she
shows that she has caught, thoroughly, his style and spirit, if she has
not altogether been imbued with his caustic humor.
The original poems in this volume are by far the best. The
"Guardian of the Red Disk" has, in its blank verse, considerable
dignity. The "Banner of the Jew" is martially conceived and
executed. The "Valley of the Baca" is singularly beautiful, and the
"In Memoriam" overcomes, dexterously, the difficulty of being
honestly laudatory in verse in memory of a recently deceased Jewish
clergyman without appearing ridiculous. But, best of all, is the poem
on the "New Year," and that called "In Exile," which refers to the
life of Russian Refugees in Texas. [...]
The Translations from Solomon benjudah Gabirol (about 1070),
Abdul Hassan Jehudah ben Ha Levi (nearly contemporary with
Gabirol), Moses Ben Ezra (about noo) are somewhat of surprises
that such beautiful poems, concerning love and other human
passions, should have lived so long uncommunicated to us through
the vernacular. Miss Lazarus has placed them before us as poems of
the highest order. [...]
The tragedy which opens the book, if it be not faultless in metre
and accent, contains many things which are impressive and some
that are beautiful. It shows strong sympathy with the not inappro-
322 APPENDIX c
priately revived account of the sufferings of the persecuted and
massacred Jews of Nordhausen in 1349, which remind one much of
the recent outrages in Russia. There is living truth in some of the
characters depicted, and many of the words spoken are thrillingly
dramatic. But, frankly, one opens the book of an American Jewish
poetess, in this country—particularly one with so forced a title—
with the full expectation of being compelled "to scoff." One closes
this work with the proverbial feeling which is quite the reverse.
It is strongly to be hoped that Miss Lazarus, who has earned
already by her former book some praise that must be gratifying to
her, will exercise much care in the correction of small, but impor-
tant, errors which we have pointed out, and she has, apparently, the
chance before her of earning what but one poetess (Mrs. Browning)
has ever earned in our time—actual fame. She has, evidently, the
quality rare in her sex, of deep erudition, and the gift, not common
in either sex, of real poetical genius.
Her graceful dedication of this work to George Eliot, the great-
est female writer of this century, and (as Miss Lazarus points out)
the greatest literary friend, in any time, of the Jews, is completely
appropriate.
5. Pereira Mendes, "A Jewish Estimate," The Critic (10 Dec.
1887): 295.
Prominent among the patriots who have rendered Hebrew history
illustrious are the daughters of the race. And among the "many
daughters who have done valiantly," not the least worthy is Emma
Lazarus. How Jewish patriotism was a passion that thrilled her can
be judged by her writings. No aimless or vague emotion was it with
her. To her, Jewish patriotism meant a response to the highest and
noblest calls that can wake the Jewish heart, and wake it to love, not
the Jew, but the world. [...]
But mindful of the ultimate destiny of her people, and knowing
that "universal welfare" could never obtain unless love wreathed and
forbearance cuirassed the human heart, she vigorously lashed the reli-
gion which had shown little love and less forbearance to her ances-
tors. Her "Dance to Death" is a grand protest against Christian cruelty
to the Jew; and in "The Crowing of the Red Cock," she cries [quota-
tion of fourth stanza]. Many a similar passage could be cited, full of
righteous indignation against Christian guilt which to-day true
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 323
Christians also condemn; and her rendering of the epistle of IbnVives
of Allorquis [sic] may be instanced to show how she entered into the
spirit of the writer his masterly exposure of the younger faith. But
her own brain throbbed with thought, original and forceful, in the
defence of her race and promotion of its interests and aspirations.
Among her production in which those thoughts are forever crystal-
lized, we may mention "By the Waters of Babylon," "The Jewish
Problem," and "Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism," a reply
to the mischievous attack of Mme. Ragozin. It was the blood of her
ancestors boiling within her, a tide of seething patriotism, which fed
her brain and shaped her thought.Yet when the white Tsar hounded
forth so many of his Hebrew subjects so shamefully that the voices
of civilization, not the weakest that of America, rang out protesting
against the new blot on the cross, she calmly reflected on the best
means to practically meet the emergency which Russian Christianity
created and Mme. Ragozin emphasized. She worked for the victims,
planned for them, visited them on their arrival here, pleaded for them,
wrote for them. Her epistles to the Hebrews will remain a monu-
ment to her deep Jewish sentiment, and her suggestions therein prove
her far-reaching wisdom; for she accentuated technical education as
a feature in the American Jewish system, and proposed to carry
American Jewish energy to attack the evil at the root by working
among the East European Jews who are to-day counted by millions.
For them she suggested "internal reform based on higher education,"
"emigration to more enlightened and progressive countries," and
"repatriation and auto-emancipation in Palestine."
Brief as is this notice of Miss Lazarus's literary work in its rela-
tion to Judaism, the leading thought in her mind, "Repatriation of
the Hebrews" must be emphasized. Had she been spared to the day
when the future of Palestine becomes, as it will become, the central
point of the Eastern question, no voice would be more earnest than
hers which has just been hushed, in asking that justice be done the
Jew and his land restored to him.
6. Review of The Poems of Emma Lazarus, The American
Hebrew (4 Jan. 1889): 164-65.
The critical world will now better than ever be enabled to do justice
to the high poetical gifts of Emma Lazarus. Hitherto her writings
have lain scattered in the few volumes published at various times,
324 APPENDIX c
most of which have long been out of print, or in the pages of peri-
odicals. Now they are collected in these two beautiful volumes
accessible to all her many admirers, and to those who will become
such by the publication of this edition of her poetical writings. [...]
The poems in the second volume are distinctively Jewish. Most
of them appeared, as the publishers note, in the columns of THE
AMERICAN HEBREW, but all her writings are dominated by the
Jewish spirit. They are all essentially contemplative, introspective.
Much as she admired Heine, much as she studied him, she was more
truly Jewish in her intellectual habits than he was. She is seldom
playful, sportive. She never utilizes the satirical methods and turns
that characterize Heine.
The subjectivity that pervades all these poems is perhaps their
most striking feature.There is no mere lyrical trifling here; no dainty
experiments at catch-penny verse-making. Not Browning himself
exhibits greater austerity of devotion to the highest ideal of the
poet's vocation. Deep as is her love for nature she never looks upon
her form without delving for the heart secreted beneath to scan its
mysteries and mayhap solve them. [...]
[T]here is for us a stronger and fonder call to her Jewish verse.
In this we find her truest self, her most profound convictions, and
strongest feelings. Not simply a wail for the sufferings of her people,
the persecutions and ignominy endured during their long exile; not
only a fervent trumpet-call to them to stand erect with courage
strong in the presence of bigotry; but as well a clarion note of proud
triumph at the achievements that make glorious the history and
literature of the Jews.
Shame must have perished forever from the breast of the Israelite
who can read these poems and renounce his fidelity to Judaism. The
appeal they make is more powerful than that which the most rigid
logic can construct or overthrow. What Whittier did for the abolition
of slavery, what Mrs. Browning achieved for the outcast children of
London, if not of the world, that will be brought to pass by the poems
of Emma Lazarus for awakening Jews to a sense of the loftiness of the
Mission of Israel, to a sense of the need that exists that they each and
all must participate in the fulfillment of that mission; just as seven years
ago they aroused in us the fervor which was needed to justly provide
for the refugees that fled to our shores from Russia.
Their place in Jewish literature is permanent, as well as in the
literature of the world.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 325
7. "The Poems of Emma Lazarus," The Literary World (2
Feb. 1889): 36.
The imaginative work of Emma Lazarus is here for the first time
collected and given to the public. We can now at last clearly and
adequately study the differing phases of that noble and pathetic
genius, hitherto known to us in fragments alone. We read the
volumes with delight and with a growing reverence, yet as we lay
them aside there is perhaps a touch of disappointment on our spir-
its. It is inevitable that in the case of a figure so attractive, so
commanding as Miss Lazarus, the first interest of the reader should
be personal. We look for herself in her poems, but the search is not
fully rewarded. The nature of Emma Lazarus, as revealed in her
work, has a curious reticence. Grave, ardent, sensitive, it is also
elusive; a certain dignity, even in the most intimate poems, bids us
not intrude too far. Yet this very reserve has its own significant
charm, and our respect for the woman deepens, though we crave
for a greater abandonment on the part of the poet.
In her earlier work, produced before her Hebrew awakening,
there is, besides this characteristic reticence, a slight vagueness, an
uncertainty of touch and aim. The chief artistic fault is a frequent
languor of movement that corresponds to this dimness of concep-
tion. We find a tremulous responsiveness to beauty, expressed now
in sympathetic rendering of old legend, now in graceful nature stud-
ies illumined by poetic fancy. We find a tendency to deal in delicate
effects, in evanescent phases of over-subtilized thought and
emotion. All this is in a sense the birthright of every finely organ-
ized child of the century. But there is an individual element in the
work of Emma Lazarus, a genuineness, a moral earnestness, a grop-
ing after reality, that make themselves felt through all her fine-spun
imaginative tissue. When a subject once possesses her she treats it
clearly and loftily. The early poem "Epochs," which begins these
volumes, possesses strength, insight, harmony. Some of the strophes,
as "Regret," "Grief," "Loneliness," "Victory," contain really memo-
rable lines."Phantasies/'less ambitious in theme,yet equally true to
music and to life, is a rare and exquisite record. Already the poet is
swayed more potently by national than by personal enthusiasm, and
her noble sonnet on the Bartholdi statue
1
 has thrilled many a cold
1
 "The New Colossus," 233.
326 APPENDIX C
and indifferent nature to its first apprehension of the glory in even
the more sordid elements of our American life. On the whole, the
poems of this first era always respond to the sympathy which they
cannot perhaps command. They leave us with the sense of a fine
nature touched to fine issues, yet searching to discover its true self
in some faith as yet unrealized, imperative, adequate.
Very interesting is the story, told in the beautiful introduction to
these volumes, of the change in Miss Lazarus when the Hebraic
passion, always latent in her nature, found itself in consciousness and
flashed into song. The poems in the second volume inspired by this
passion hardly need a commentary.They glow with light clear because
intense. Less poetic to a superficial glance than the earlier work, the
breadth and simplicity of their treatment bear witness to the definite
strength of their inspiration. Happy the modern poet who can thus
find an objective cause to arouse his genius! The drama "The Dance
to Death" sweeps the reader on, merged in its mighty current, obliv-
ious of all besides. He cannot stop to inquire whether he be carried
away by the lurid conception, by the knowledge of its historic truth,
or by pure poetic power. In such a poem as "Gifts" the vigor of the
thought uplifts the treatment to a severe nobility. Greatest of all in
their strange cadence and visionary power are the short prose-poems.
Is it too much to say that a gleam of the solemn fire of the Hebrew
prophets shines through the work of this latest child of their race?
Such poems as these of Emma Lazarus must be received with
serious gratitude. They are interpreted by the haunting face that
serves as frontispiece to the volumes. In the poems as in the face we
find a noble nature, pure, sensitive, grave, true; in the poems as in
the face we find a something which speaks of unsatisfied desire. Not
love of beauty, not poetic fire, not moral earnestness nor hatred of
wrong, nor even the intense devotion to a race-ideal, could quite
content this spirit. She found no more, seemingly, in this life; and as
we read, the conviction slowly takes possession of our minds that
even her latest phase was not final, and that the complete fulfillment
of her genius was unrealized on earth.
8. Solomon Solis-Cohen, "The Poems of Emma Lazarus,"
The American (23 Feb. 1889): 295-97.
The writings of Emma Lazarus may be divided into two groups,
corresponding very closely to two periods of her soul-life; whereof
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 327
the dividing line is the year (1879-80) of the revival of anti-Jewish
demonstrations throughout Northeastern Europe, and especially
and most cruelly in Russia.
These periods may be termed, with relation not only to subjects
treated and methods of treatment, but as well to inspiring influences,
the Hellenic and the Hebraic; the former being the earlier and
longer, and the more fruitful in the number of its productions; the
latter and richer, having been cut short by the poet s untimely death.
This division is indicated in the arrangement of the two volumes,
wherein the sisters of the dead singer have reproduced, with a well-
written and sympathetic memoir, such of her verses as they had
reason to believe she would not have been unwilling to have
preserved in permanent form. For much that had been written by
one whose first book (1867) contained the outpourings of a girl
between her fourteenth and seventeenth years of life; and whose
second book ("Admetus and Other Poems," 1871) was given to the
press before she completed her twenty-first year; was necessarily
condemned by the severer judgment of ripened experience. [...]
"Epochs," a thoughtful and thought-awakening cycle of poems,
reprinted from the edition of 1871, takes for its motto, a sentence
from the poet s friend, Emerson: "The epochs of our life are not in
the visible facts, but in the silent thoughts by the wayside as we walk."
Full of the poets subjectivity, they clearly reveal the exquisite sensi-
tiveness of her soul, the richness of its inner life, and its power of inti-
mate communion with nature; together with a hint of the passionate
sympathy with suffering, that later, fired her Jewish poems. [...]
Of later poems, the most powerful is that entitled "A Masque of
Venice," a posthumous publication reprinted from the Century
magazine. It is a weird but nevertheless gracefully wrought fantasy,
reminding us of Poe at his best.
But had Emma Lazarus given us only beautiful remodellings of
Grecian myth and mediaeval legend, sweet, sympathetic pictures of
the inner life, poetic descriptions of nature that gild the "Fog" and
glorify the "Morning,"—even patriotic lyrics and elegies like
"Heroes," "How Long?" "The South," "Sunrise," which breathe a
profound love of country, and a lofty aspiration for its future,—her
place in the history of song would not have been that eminence
whereto her response to the call of a stern hour suddenly lifted her.
From the savage land of the Tsar came the despairing cry of a people
over whom once again swept the terrible tide of undeserved hatred
328 APPENDIX c
and bitter persecution. Humanity shuddered to hear of the name-
less wrongs done in Moscow and Warsaw, in the towns and villages
of Bulgaria and Servia and Roumania. France, England, America,
voiced their protest against the cruelties inflicted upon helpless
human beings in the name of the religion of love. But to Emma
Lazarus, that cry of despair came with an unusual force. It was the
voice of her murdered brothers, of her outraged sisters.
It came to her, as of old the cry of the oppressed people to
Deborah:"
 9
Uri! 'uri! dabberi shir! —Awake! Awake! Pour forth thy
song! "The Jewess that had slumbered in the groves of Arcadia,
forgetting Zion, forgetting the exiles by the rivers of Babel, did
indeed "awake and sing." Rang out a burst of impassioned prophecy,
whereof the like had not been heard since the Spain ofTorquemada
dashed from Israels hand the harp the kindly Moor had bidden him
lift from off the willow-bough. No longer was the mocking, cynical
Heine, "Heine, the Greek, Heine the Jew, Heine, the Romanticist"
the chief poet of Judaic blood—but prophet and psalmist, Gabirol,
Ben Ezra, Hallevi,
1
 spoke to her and inspired her word. [...]
In "The New Year," written for the Jewish festival of Rosh-
Hashanah, 5643 (1882), she sings with glowing enthusiasm of what
she had before deemed lifeless forms, and pictures the steadfast hero-
ism of the martyrs to whom these forms were indeed a living inspi-
ration. [...] The identification of the poet with her people is
complete. It is "we," who perform the prescribed festal rites, who
suffer, and who rejoice in the choice of suffering rather than betrayal
of a divine trust.
"The Banner of the Jew" is a trumpet call for the restoration of
Palestinian nationality, which became the enthusiastic hope of the
now ardent Jewess, the everpresent dream of the poet; and which
she urged as well in various prose writings; seeing therein the only
sure defense against recurring persecutions.
"The Dance to Death," is founded on an historical event of the
fourteenth century. A five-act tragedy, it is but an episode in a single
scene of the perpetual tragedy of Israel's persecutions. It exhibits
both dramatic power, and a lofty poesy; and would alone give the
author an enduring name. The final catastrophe, where the Jews of
Nordhausen, condemned to perish by fire, pass to the platform
above the flames, carrying in procession the sacred scrolls of the Law
1
 See note 2, p. 198, note i, p. 207, and note i, p. 212.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 329
and singing hymns of joy, is portrayed by direct and indirect action
with surpassing skill, and conveys an impression of indescribable
majesty—up to the very moment of the stage direction: "Music
ceases; a sound of crashing boards is heard and a great cry—
HALLELUJAH! "The love episode of gentle LiebhaidVon Orb and the
noble Prince William of Meissen, is given too, with tender grace
and sweetness; inviting literary contrast with the equally well-drawn
love scenes between the pleasure-seeking John of Austria and the
passionate Maria, in the poet's earlier drama, "The Spagnoletto."
"Gifts" and "The Choice" set forth in different ways the same
idea: The Egyptian prays for wealth, the Grecian for beauty, the
Roman for power—they obtain their wishes and decay with their
perishing gifts. The Hebrew asks for Truth, and though at the cost
of unending martyrdom, receives with Truth unending life.
Of the other poems which illustrate various historic, religious and
philosophic phases of Jewish life and thought, we can allude to but
one more series: "By the Waters of Babylon: Little Poems in Prose."
This group of pictures, in which reechoes the elevated tone of
Biblical poetry, has a melancholy interest as being almost the latest
effort of the poetess in behalf of her people, penned while she was
suffering with the pangs of an incurable malady. It is the culmina-
tion of her power as a writer, and merely from a literary standpoint
we must regret that she could not have been spared to enrich the
English anthology with other poems in the same prose form. [...]
Emma Lazarus, as shown in the volumes before us, must be given
high and unique place in the choir of English singers; but more than
this, she has an exalted station among the lofty spirits who have
voiced the sublime passion and inspiring hope of Israel.
9. Edmund Clarence Stedman, "Emma Lazarus," Genius and
Other Essays (New York: Mo£Fat,Yard, 1911) 264-67.
While thoroughly feminine, and a mistress of the social art and
charm, she was—though without the slightest trace of pedantry—
the natural companion of scholars and thinkers. Her emotional
nature kept pace with her intellect; as she grew in learning and
mental power, she became still more earnest, devoted, impassioned.
These advantages marked her writings—especially her poetry,
which changed in later years from its early reflection of the
Grecian ideals and took on a lyrical and veritably Hebraic fire and
330 APPENDIX c
imagination. You have rightly said of her that "she wrote only when
inspired"; and there was a contagious inspiration in her Semitic
ardor, her satire, wrath and exaltation. That she was able to impart
these qualities to sustained creative work is shown by her strangely
powerful drama "The Dance to Death," unique in American
poetry. Viewed merely on the literary side, her abilities were so
progressive, under the quickening force of a lofty motive, that her
early death is a deplorable loss in a time when so much verse, if not
as sounding brass, seems to come from tinkling cymbals.
During the last few years, owning to her change of residence, I
met Miss Lazarus less frequently, and I scarcely knew what infer-
ence to derive from your feeling biographical sketch, as to her reli-
gious attitude and convictions.That she was aglow with the Jewish
spirit, proud of her race's history and characteristics, and consecrated
to its freedom from oppression throughout the world,—all this is
finely manifest; yet her intellectual outlook was so broad that I took
her to be a modern Theist in religion, and one who would not stip-
ulate for absolute maintenance of the barriers with which the
Mosaic law isolated the Jewish race, in certain respects, from the rest
of mankind. Taking into account, however, the forces of birth and
training, I could understand how our Miriam
1
 of today, filled with
the passion of her cause, should return to the Pentateuchal faith—
to the Mosaic ritual in its hereditary and most uncompromising
form. Nor would any lover of the heroic in life or literature, if such
had been her course, desire to have it otherwise.
Eighteen years have passed since I wrote the foregoing characteri-
zation, under the grave sense of loss inspired by the pity of her death
at the very bloom of her creative genius and her new aspiration.
I saw Miss Lazarus most frequently between 1879 and 1881, when
our homes were not far apart and she was often an admired guest
in my household. One evening she confided to me her feeling of
despondency as to her poetic work; a belief that, with all her passion
for beauty and justice, she "had accomplished nothing to stir, noth-
ing to awaken, to teach or to suggest, nothing that the world could
not equally well do without." These very words I take from a letter
1
 A heroine in Jewish scripture, Miriam is the sister of Moses and Aaron. After cross-
ing the Red Sea and escaping from Egypt, Miriam leads the women of Israel in
singing and dancing. See Exodus 15.20-21.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 331
received from her in the same week, and they are the substance of
what she had spoken. Although no American poet of her years had
displayed from childhood a more genuine gift than hers, I knew
exactly what she meant. She had followed art for art s sake, along
classic lines, and had added no distinctive element to English song.
It suddenly occurred to me to ask her why she had been so indif-
ferent to a vantage-ground which she, a Jewess of the purest stock,
held above any other writer. Persecutions of her race were then
beginning in Europe. She said that, although proud of her blood
and lineage, the Hebrew ideals did not appeal to her; but I replied
that I envied her the inspiration she might derive from them.
It was not long before outrages to which the Jews were subjected
in Eastern and middle Europe began to stir the civilized world, and
the heart and spirit of Emma Lazarus thrilled, as I from the first had
believed they would, with the passion and indignation that supplied
the motive needed for her song. When we were electrified by those
glowing lyrics, "The Crowing of the Red Cock," and "The Banner
of the Jew," I felt that she at last had come to her own. When she
died, a princess was fallen in Israel. Would that her hand were here
to smite the harp, in this hour of her race s supreme and last ordeal
in the Old World, and equally to sound the note of jubilation and
prophecy as you celebrate, even now, the settlement of your historic
people upon a continent where no tyranny checks their freedom
and progress.
332 APPENDIX c
Appendix D: Cultural Contexts
[When read alongside her poems and essays, the following docu-
ments situate Lazarus within her contemporary cultural context
and provide information important to her writing. Some are
passages from texts that inspired and informed her work, such as
Graetz s History of the Jews and Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda. No
international event had a greater impact on the direction of
Lazarus s work than the persecution ofjews in Russia and Eastern
Europe in the i88os. Included here are three contemporary
accounts of the pogroms—one from a British newspaper, one
from a Russian partisan, and one from an American member of
Congress. Lazarus s thinking about the persecution of Russian Jews
and her ideas about immigration and Jewish settlement in Palestine
were controversial, and two of the pieces below present her oppo-
nents' views: Ragozin's justification of the pogroms (to which
Lazarus responds in "Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism")
and Isaacs s objections to Lazarus s ideas about the return ofjews
to Palestine (a reply to her "The Jewish Problem"). Finally, there
are two examples of nineteenth-century anti-semitic discourse,
Ragozin's article and selections from The American Jew. They
provide a glimpse of the anti-immigrant, anti-Jewish prejudice that
was a growing part of Lazarus's social world. Moreover, when
compared to "The Guardian of the Red Disk" or the language of
Prior Peppercorn in The Dance to Death, for example, they reveal
the ways Lazarus deployed anti-semitic language against itself]
i. Heinrich Graetz, selections from Geschichte derjuden (1874),
trans, by Emma Lazarus as "Notes to 'Epistle' of Joshua Ibn
Vives of Allorqui," The Poems of Emma Lazarus, 2 vols.
(Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1889), 2:253-56.
The life and character of Paulus de Santa Maria are thus described
by Dr. Graetz:—
Among the Jews baptized in 1391, no other wrought so much
harm to his race as the Rabbi Solomon Levi of Burgos, known to
Christians as Paulus Burgensis, or de Santa Maria (born about
1351-52, died 1435) who rose to very high ecclesiastical and political
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 333
rank.... He had no philosophical culture; on the contrary, as a Jew, he
had been extremely devout, observing scrupulously all the rites, and
regarded as a pillar of Judaism in his own circle.... Possessed by ambi-
tion and vanity, the synagogue where he had passed a short time in
giving and receiving instruction, appeared to him too narrow and
restricted a sphere. He longed for a bustling activity, aimed at a posi-
tion at court, in whatever capacity, began to live on a grand scale,
maintained a sumptuous equipage, a spirited team, and a numerous
retinue of servants. As his affairs brought him into daily contact with
Christians and entangled him in religious discussions, he studied
ecclesiastical literature in order to display his erudition. The bloody
massacre of 1391 robbed him of all hope of reaching eminence as a
Jew, in his fortieth year, and he abruptly resolved to be baptized.
1
 The
lofty degree of dignity which he afterwards attained in Church and
State, may even then have floated alluringly before his mind. In order
to profit by his apostasy, the convert Paulus de Santa Maria gave out
that he had voluntarily embraced Christianity, the theological writ-
ings of the Scholiast Thomas of Aquinas having taken hold of his
inmost convictions. The Jews, however, mistrusted his credulity, and
knowing him well, they ascribed this step to his ambition and his
thirst for fame. His family, consisting of a wife and son, renounced
him when he changed his faith.... He studied theology in the
University of Paris, and then visited the papal court of Avignon, where
Cardinal Pedro de Juna had been elected papal antagonist to Benedict
XIII. of Rome. The church feud and the schism between the two
Popes offered the most favorable opportunity for intrigues and
claims.
2
 Paulus, by his cleverness, his zeal, and his eloquence, won the
favor of the Pope, who discerned in him a useful tool. Thus he
became successively Archdeacon ofTrevinjo, Canon of Seville, Bishop
of Cartagena, Chancellor of Castile, and Privy Councillor to King
Henry III. of Spain. With tongue and pen he attacked Judaism, and
Jewish literature provided him with the necessary weapons. Intelligent
Jews rightly divined in this convert to Christianity their bitterest
enemy, and entered into a contest with him....
The campaign against the malignity of Paul de Santa Maria was
1
 In the spring of 1391, an anti-Jewish mob poured into the Jewish quarter of Seville
to beat and murder its residents. Over 4000 people were killed. Thereafter some
Spanish Jews, like Paulus, began to convert to Christianity.
2
 From 1378 to 1417, a schism in Roman Catholicism produced two rival papacies, one
located in Rome, the other in Avignon.
334 APPENDIX D
opened by a young man who had formerly sat at his feet, Joshua ben
Joseph IbnVives, from the town of Lorca or Allorqui, a physician and
Arabic scholar. In an epistle written in a tone of humility as from a
docile pupil to a revered master, he deals his apostate teacher heavy
blows, and under the show of doubt he shatters the foundations of
Christianity. He begins by saying that the apostasy of his beloved
teacher to whom his loyal spirit had formerly clung, has amazed him
beyond measure and aroused in him many serious reflections. He
can only conceive four possible motives for such a surprising step.
Either Paulus has been actuated by ambition, love of wealth, pomp,
and the satisfaction of the senses, or else by doubt of the truth of
Judaism upon philosophic grounds, and has renounced therefore the
religion which afforded him so little freedom and security; or else
he has foreseen through the latest cruel persecutions of the Jews in
Spain, the total extinction of the race; or, finally, he may have become
convinced of the truth of Christianity. The writer enters therefore
into an examination based upon his acquaintance with the charac-
ter of his former master, as to which of these four motives is most
likely to have occasioned the act. He cannot believe that ambition
and covetousness prompted it, "For I remember when you used to
be surrounded by wealth and attendants, you sighed regretfully for
your previous humble station, for your retired life and communion
with wisdom, and regarded your actual brilliant position as an unsat-
isfactory sham happiness. Neither can Allorqui admit that Paulus had
been disturbed by philosophic scepticism, for to the day of his
baptism he had observed all the Jewish customs and had only
accepted that little kernel of philosophy which accords with faith,
always rejecting the pernicious outward shell. He must also discard
the theory that the sanguinary persecution of the Jews could have
made Paulus despair of the possible continuation of the Jewish race,
for only a small portion of the Jews dwelt among Christians, while
the majority lived in Asia and enjoyed a certain independence.There
remains only the conclusion that Paulus has tested the new dogmas
and found them sufficient.... Allorqui therefore begs him to commu-
nicate his convictions and vanquish his pupil's doubts concerning
Christianity. Instead of the general spread of divine doctrine and
everlasting peace which the prophets had associated with the advent
of the Messiah, only dissension and war reigned on earth. Indeed,
after Jesus' appearance, frightful wars had but increased.... And even
if Allorqui conceded the Messiahship of Jesus, the Immaculate
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 335
Conception, the Resurrection, and all incomprehensible miracles,
he could not reconcile himself to the idea of God becoming a man.
Every enlightened conception of the Deity was at variance with it."
[Page 77 et seq. Volume 8, Second half, Graetz' History of the
Jews.{Lazaruss note.}]
2. George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, chap. 42, Harper's New
Monthly Magazine (Aug. 1876): 432-35.
"Well, whatever the Jews contributed at one time, they are a stand-
still people," said Lilly. "They are the type of obstinate adherence to
the superannuated. They may show good abilities when they take
up liberal ideas, but as a race they have no development in them."
"That is false!" said Mordecai, leaning forward again with his
former eagerness. "Let their history be known and examined; let
the seed be sifted, let its beginning be traced to the weed of wilder-
ness—the more glorious will be the energy that transformed it.
Where else is there a nation of whom it may be as truly said that
their religion and law and moral life mingled as the stream of blood
in the heart and made one growth—where else a people who kept
and enlarged their spiritual store at the very time when they were
hunted with a hatred as fierce as the forest fires that chase the wild
beast from his covert? There is a fable of the Roman that, swim-
ming to save his life, he held the roll of his writings between his
teeth and saved them from the waters. But how much more than
that is true of our race? They struggled to keep their place among
the nations like heroes—yea, when the hand was hacked off, they
clung with the teeth; but when the plow and harrow had passed
over the last visible signs of their national covenant, and the fruit-
lessness of their land was stifled with the blood of the sowers and
planters, they said, 'The spirit is alive, let us make it a lasting habita-
tion—lasting because movable—so that it may be carried from
generation to generation, and our sons unborn may be rich in the
things that have been, and possess a hope built on an unchangeable
foundation.'They said it and they wrought it, though often breath-
ing with scant life, as in a coffin, or as lying wounded amidst a heap
of slain. Hooted and scared like the unowned dog, the Hebrew
made himself envied for his wealth and wisdom, and was bled of
them to fill the bath of Gentile luxury; he absorbed knowledge, he
336 APPENDIX D
diffused it; his dispersed race was a new Phoenicia working the
mines of Greece and carrying their products to the world. The
native spirit of our tradition was not to stand still, but to use records
as a seed, and draw out the compressed virtues of law and prophecy;
and while the Gentile, who had said, 'What is yours is ours, and no
longer yours,' was reading the letter of our law as a dark inscription,
or was turning its parchments into shoe soles for an army rabid with
lust and cruelty, our Masters were still enlarging and illuminating
with fresh-fed interpretation. But the dispersion was wide, the yoke
of oppression was a spiked torture as well as a load; the exile was
forced afar among the brutish people, where the consciousness of
his race was no clearer to him than the light of the sun to our fathers
in the Roman persecution, who had their hiding-place in a cave,
and knew not that it was day save by the dimmer burning of their
candles. What wonder that multitudes of our people are ignorant,
narrow, superstitious? What wonder?"
Here Mordecai, whose seat was next the fireplace, rose and leaned
his arm on the little shelf; his excitement had risen, though his voice,
which had begun with unusual strength, was getting hoarser.
"What wonder? The night is unto them, that they have no
vision; in their darkness they are unable to divine; the sun is gone
down over the prophets, and the day is dark above them; their
observances are as nameless as relics. But which among the chief of
the Gentile nations has not an ignorant multitude? They scorn our
people s ignorant observance; but the most accursed ignorance is
that which has no observance—sunk to the cunning greed of the
fox, to which all law is no more than a trap or the cry of the worry-
ing hound. There is a degradation deep down below the memory
that has withered into superstition. In the multitudes of the igno-
rant on three continents who now observe our rites and make the
confession of the divine Unity, the soul of Judaism is not dead.
Revive the organic centre: let the unity of Israel which has made
the growth and form of its religion be an outward reality. Looking
toward a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of
the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a voice
among the peoples of the East and the West—which will plant the
wisdom and skill of our race so that it may be, as of old, a medium
of transmission and understanding. Let that come to pass, and the
living warmth will spread to the weak extremities of Israel, and
superstition will vanish, not in the lawlessness of the renegade, but
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 337
in the illumination of great facts which widen feeling, and make all
knowledge alive as the young offspring of beloved memories."
Mordecai's voice had sunk, but, with the hectic brilliancy of his
gaze, it was not the less impressive. [...]
All eyes were fixed on Mordecai as he sat down again, and none
with unkindness; but it happened that the one who felt the most
kindly was the most prompted to speak in opposition.This was the
genial and rational Gideon, who also was not without a sense that
he was addressing the guest of the evening. He said:
"You have your own way of looking at things, Mordecai, and, as
you say, your own way seems to you rational. I know you don't hold
with the restoration to Judaea by miracle, and so on; but you are
well aware as I am that the subject has been mixed with a heap of
nonsense both by Jews and Christians. And as to the connection of
our race with Palestine, it has been perverted by superstition till it's
as demoralizing as the old poor-law. The raff and scum go there to
be maintained like able-bodied paupers, and to be taken special care
of by the angel Gabriel when they die. It's no use fighting against
facts. We must look at where they point; that's what I call rational-
ity. The most learned and liberal men among us who are attached
to our religion are for clearing our liturgy of all such notions as a
literal fulfillment of the prophecies about restoration, and so on.
Prune it of a few useless rites and literal interpretations of that sort,
and our religion is the simplest of all religions, and makes no barrier,
but a union, between us and the rest of the world."
"As plain as a pike-staff," said Pash, with an ironical laugh. "You
pluck it up by the roots, strip off the leaves and bark, shave off the
knots, and smooth it at top and bottom; put it where you will, it
will do no harm, it will never sprout. You may make a handle of it,
or you may throw it on the bonfire of scoured rubbish. I don't see
why our rubbish is to be held sacred any more than the rubbish of
Brahmanism or Buddhism."
"No," said Mordecai, "no, Pash, because you have lost the heart
of the Jew. Community was felt before it was called good. I praise
no superstition; I praise the living fountains of enlarging belief. What
is growth, completion, development? You began with that question,
I apply it to the history of our people. I say that the effect of our
separateness will not be completed and have its highest transforma-
tion unless our race takes on again the character of a nationality.That
is the fulfillment of the religious trust that moulded them into a
338 APPENDIX D
people, whose life has made half the inspiration of the world. What
is it to me that the ten tribes are lost untraceably or that multitudes
of children ofjudah have mixed themselves with the Gentile popu-
lations as a river with rivers? Behold our people still! Their skirts
spread afar: they are torn and soiled and trodden on; but there is a
jeweled breastplate. Let the wealthy men, the monarchs of
commerce, the learned in all knowledge, the skillful in all arts, the
speakers, the political counselors, who carry in their veins the
Hebrew blood which has maintained its vigor in all climates, and the
pliancy of the Hebrew genius for which difficulty means new
device—let them say, 'We will lift up a standard, we will unite in a
labor hard but glorious like that of Moses and Ezra, a labor which
shall be a worthy fruit of the long anguish whereby our fathers main-
tained their separateness, refusing the ease of falsehood.'They have
wealth enough to redeem the soil from debauched and paupered
conquerors; they have the skill of the statesman to devise, the tongue
of the orator to persuade. And is there no prophet or poet among us
to make the ears of Christian Europe tingle with shame at the
hideous obloquy of Christian strife which the Turk gazes at as at the
fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena? There is a store of
wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just,
like the old—a republic where there is equality of protection, an
equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our ancient
community, and gave it more brightness ofWestern freedom amidst
the despotisms of the East. Then our race shall have an organic
centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the
outraged Jew shall have a defense in the court of nations, as the
outraged Englishman or American. And the world will gain as Israel
gains. For there will be a community in the van of the East which
carries the culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its
bosom; there will be a land set for a halting-place of enmities, a
neutral ground for the East as Belgium is for the West. Difficulties?
I know there are difficulties. But let the spirit of sublime achieve-
ment move in the great among our people, and the work will begin."
"Ay, we may safely admit that, Mordecai," said Pash."When there
are great men on 'Change and high-flying professors converted to
your doctrine, difficulties will vanish like smoke."
Deronda, inclined by nature to take the side of those on whom
the arrows of scorn were falling, could not help replying to Pash s
outfling, and said:
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 339
"If we look back to the history of efforts which have made great
changes, it is astonishing how many of them seemed hopeless to
those who looked on in the beginning. Take what we have all heard
and seen of something of—the effort after the unity of Italy, which
we are sure soon to see accomplished to the very last boundary.
Look into Mazzini's account of his first yearning, when he was a
boy, after a restored greatness and a new freedom to Italy, and of his
first efforts as a young man to rouse the same feelings in other young
men, and get them to work toward a united nationality. Almost
every thing seemed against him: his countrymen were ignorant or
indifferent, governments hostile, Europe incredulous. Of course the
scorners often seemed wise.Yet you see the prophecy lay with him.
As long as there is a remnant of national consciousness, I suppose
nobody will deny that there may be a new stirring of memories and
hopes which may inspire arduous action."
"Amen," said Mordecai, to whom Deronda's words were a cordial.
"What is needed is the leaven—what is needed is the seed of fire.
The heritage of Israel is beating in the pulses of millions; it lives in
their veins as a power without understanding, like the morning exul-
tation of herds; it is the inborn half of memory, moving as in a dream
among writings on the walls, which it sees dimly lit but can not
divide into speech. Let the torch of visible community be lit! Let the
reason of Israel disclose itself in a great outward deed, and let there
be another great migration, another choosing of Israel to be a nation-
ality whose members may still stretch to the ends of the earth, even
as the sons of England and Germany, whom enterprise carries afar,
but who still have a national hearth and a tribunal of national opin-
ion. Will any say 'It can not be?' Baruch Spinoza had not a faithful
Jewish heart, though he had sucked the life of his intellect at the
breasts of Jewish tradition. He laid bare his father s nakedness and
said, 'They who scorn him have the higher wisdom.'Yet Baruch
Spinoza confessed he saw not why Israel should not again be a
chosen nation. Who says that the history and literature of our race
are dead? Are they not living as the history and literature of Greece
and Rome, which have inspired revolutions, enkindled the thought
of Europe, and made the unrighteous powers tremble? These were
an inheritance dug from the tomb. Ours is an inheritance that has
never ceased to quiver in millions of human frames."
Mordecai had stretched his arms upward, and his long thin hands
quivered in the air for a moment after he had ceased to speak.
340 APPENDIX D
Gideon was certainly a little moved, for though there was no long
pause before he made a remark in objection, his tone was more mild
and deprecatory than before; Pash, meanwhile, pressing his lips
together, rubbing his black head with both his hands, and wrinkling
his brow horizontally, with the expression of one who differs from
every speaker, but does it not think it worthwhile to say so. There
is a sort of human paste that when it comes near the fire of enthu-
siasm is only baked into a harder shape.
"It may seem well enough on one side to make so much of our
memories and inheritance as you do, Mordecai," said Gideon; "but
there's another side. It isn't all gratitude and harmless glory. Our people
have inherited a good deal of hatred. There's a pretty lot of curses still
flying about, and stiff settled rancor inherited from times of persecu-
tion. How will you justify keeping one sort of memory and throwing
away the other? There are ugly debts standing on both sides."
"I justify the choice as all other choice is justified," said Mordecai.
"I cherish nothing for the Jewish nation, I seek nothing for them, but
the good which promises good to all the nations. The spirit of our
religious life, which is one with our national life, is not hatred of aught
but wrong. The Masters have said an offense against man is worse than
an offense against God. But what wonder if there is hatred in the
breasts of Jews who are children of ignorant and oppressed—what
wonder, since there is hatred in the breasts of Christians. Our national
life was a growing light. Let the central light be kindled again, and the
light will reach afar. The degraded and scorned of our race will learn
to think of their sacred land not as a place for saintly beggary to await
death in loathsome idleness, but as a republic where the Jewish spirit
manifests itself in a new order founded on the old, purified, enriched
by the experience our greatest sons have gathered from the life of the
ages. How long is it?—only two centuries since a vessel carried over
the ocean the beginning of the great North American nation. The
people grew like meeting waters: they were various in habit and sect.
There came a time, a century ago, when they needed a polity, and
there were heroes of peace among them. What had they to form a
polity with but memories of Europe, corrected by the vision of a
better? Let our wise and wealthy show themselves heroes.They have
the memories of the East and West, and they have the full vision of a
better. A new Persia with a purified religion magnified itself in art and
wisdom. So will a new Judaea, poised between East and West—a
covenant of reconciliation. Will any say the prophetic vision of your
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 341
race has been hopelessly mixed with folly and bigotry; the angel of
progress has no message for Judaism—it is a half-buried city for the
paid workers to lay open—the waters are rushing by it as a forsaken
field? I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them.
The Messianic time is the time when Israel shall will the planting of
the national ensign. The Nile overflowed and rushed onward: the
Egyptian could not choose the overflow, but he chose to work and
make channels for the fructifying waters, and Egypt became a land of
corn. Shall man, whose soul is set in the royalty of discernment and
resolve, deny his rank and say, I am an onlooker, ask no choice or
purpose of me? That is the blasphemy of this time. The divine prin-
ciple of our race is action, choice, resolved memory. Let us contradict
the blasphemy, and help to will our own better future and the better
future of the world—not renounce our higher gift and say,'Let us be
as if we were not among the populations;' but choose our full
heritage, claim the brotherhood of our nation, and carry into it a new
brotherhood with the nations of the Gentiles. The vision is there; it
will be fulfilled."
With the last sentence, which was no more than a loud whisper,
Mordecai let his chin sink on his breast and his eyelids fall. No one
spoke.
3. "The Persecution of the Jews in Russia," The Times
[London] (n Jan. 1882): 4; (13 Jan. 1882): 4.
The following account of the events of 1881 with regard to the
Russian Jews, compiled from the best available sources of informa-
tion, has been furnished to us by a correspondent:—
[...] During the past eight months a track of country, equal in
area to the British Isles and France combined, stretching from the
Baltic to the Black Sea, has been the scene of horrors that have hith-
erto only been perpetrated in mediaeval days during times of war.
Men ruthlessly murdered, tender infants dashed to death, or roasted
alive in their own homes, married women the prey of brutal lust
that has often caused their death and young girls violated in the
sight of their relatives by soldiers who should have been the
guardians of their honour—these have been the deeds with which
the population of Southern Russia has been stained since last April.
In the face of these horrors loss of property is of little moment, yet
342 APPENDIX D
they have been accompanied by the razing of whole streets inhab-
ited by Jews, by the systematic firing of the Jewish quarters of towns
in Western Russia, and by the pillage of property on which thou-
sands of Jewish families were dependent for existence.
[The article goes on to provide details of several anti-semitic
attacks and riots, including:] [...] rumours of a rising had reached
Elizabethgrad, and caused the heads of the Jewish community, who
form a third of its 30,000 inhabitants, to apply for special protection
from the Governor. No notice was taken of the appeal, and on
Wednesday, April 27, the dreaded outbreak took place. A religious
dispute in a cabaret led to a scuffle which grew into a general melee till
the mob obtained of the dram-shop and rifled its contents. Inflamed
by the drink thus obtained, the rioters proceeded to the Jewish quar-
ter, and commenced a systematic destruction of the Jewish shops and
warehouses. At first some attempt was made by the Jews to protect
their property; but this only served to increase the violence of the
mob, which proceeded to attack the dwellings of the Jews and to
wreck the synagogues. Amid the horrors that ensued a Jew named
Zololwenski lost his life, and no fewer than 30 Jewesses were outraged.
At one place, two young girls in dread of violence, threw themselves
from the windows. Meanwhile the military had been called out, but
only to act at first as spectators and afterwards as active participators.
Once section of the mob, formed of rioters and soldiers, broke into
the dwelling of an old man named PelikofF, and on his attempting to
save his daughter from a fate worse than death, they threw him down
from the roof, while 20 soldiers proceeded to work their will on his
unfortunate daughter. When seen by the correspondent who narrates
this fact, PelikofF was in a state of hopeless madness, and his daughter
completely ruined in mind and body. The whole Jewish quarter was
at the mercy of the mob till April 29. During the two days of the riots,
500 houses and 100 ships were destroyed, whole streets being razed
to the ground. It may be added that the property destroyed and stolen
was reckoned at 2,000,000 roubles.
The evidence of the pent-up anti-Jewish passion displayed by
these scenes encouraged the foes of the Jews to wider and more
systematic attacks. [...]
The outrages we have recounted above, though, no doubt, the
most important, are far from including all similar events that have
occurred during the past year. They have been selected from a list of
over 160 towns and villages in which cases of riot, rapine, murder, and
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 343
spoilation have been known to occur during the last nine months of
1881. Out of these information was collected from about 45 towns
and villages in Southern Russia. In these alone are reported 23
murders of men, women, and children, 17 deaths caused by violation,
and no fewer than 225 cases of outrages on Jewesses. [...]
Besides appealing to the blind passions of the mob, the Jew-haters
of Russia have during the past year resorted to more systematic
efforts to harass the hapless Israelites. The Russian Moujik has a
method almost peculiar to himself of expressing his rage and hatred.
Moscow is but the most celebrated instance of periods in Russian
history when incendiarism has been the order of the day Whenever
the fever point of excitement is reached arson is usually the direc-
tion in which it overflows. So well is this recognized in Russia that
the peasants have a technical name for the deliberate firing of
towns—the "red cock" is said to crow. During the past year this
method of revenge has been resorted to on a large scale against the
Jews of Russia, especially in the West. By the end of June, the "red
cock" had crowed over 15 towns in Western Russia.
[...] It is certain that the direct causes of the objection of the
Russians to their Jewish fellow-citizens is the natural result of the
Russian laws which restrict their rights and mark them off from the
rest of the nation. It is the lesson taught by all experience that the
only solution of the Jewish question is the granting of full equality. It
is absolutely certain that the whole body of Jews, forming one-eighth
of the population amid which they dwell, cannot be accused of
"exploitation," or "usury," as imputed by the [Russian governments]
rescript, the fact being that the chief industries of Russia are in the
hands of the thrifty and hardworking Jews. Again, objection to
innkeeping by Jews is clearly a gross injustice, seeing that statistics
show drunkenness to be more prevalent in provinces where Jews do
not reside. But, waiving all this, surely the poor women who had been
violated, the little children who had been murdered, the farmers who
had been robbed of their cattle and implements, could not be accused
of these charges. [...] The Jewish question at the present moment is
not how the Jews should be prevented from competing with the
Russians in certain trades, but whether the lives of three millions and
a half of Jews shall be left at the mercy of the passions of the mob.
[...] In short, it seems to be the intention to make Russia an
impossible home for Jews, or perhaps even to doom them to
344 APPENDIX D
complete extinction.The Russo-Jewish question may, therefore, be
summed up in these words. Are three and a half millions of human
beings to perish because they are Jews?
4. Mme. Z. Ragozin, "Russian Jews and Gentiles. From a
Russian Point ofView," The Century (April 1882): 905-907,
919-920.
[LJooking back along the line of ages, we find that no historical
event recurs more surely, though at irregular intervals, than popular
outbreaks against the Jews. Wherein lies the cause of this singularly
tenacious phenomenon? Historians are quick and ready with their
answer: "In religious intolerance, with its attendant spirits of fanati-
cism and persecution, and in the antagonism of race." Such an
explanation may pass muster for the ages of mediaeval darkness—
but sweeping assertions seldom exhaust a subject, and this can be
proved to be no exception to the rule. When the same phenome-
non is reproduced periodically in our own time, under our eyes,
and we are still told that "its only cause lies in religious intolerance
and the spirit of persecution—more shame to our enlightened nine-
teenth century," and when this is made the burden of a general hue
and cry from the so-called progressive and liberal press of most
countries, we become slightly skeptical, and desirous of looking into
the matter for ourselves and more closely. We hope better things of
our own time; we are familiar with it, being a part of it, and we
know that its ruling spirit is not that of religious intolerance. We also
know, from the teachings of the modern philosophical school of
history, that the popular mind and feeling, however abrupt and
unreasonable their outward manifestations may be, are strictly logi-
cal in their development, and that the masses, when they appear to
be swayed by nothing but caprice, or a sudden gust of passion, or at
best by a blind and defective instinct, are in reality ruled by irre-
sistible hidden currents of historical life, not the less powerful
because they act at great depths below the surface.
[...] [O]n the whole, the mob behaved—for a mob—with
remarkable coolness and discrimination. Not a single Russian house
or shop was touched, even by mistake, although protected only by
crosses in white chalk on the doors and shutters, and occasionally
by some saints' images (ikonas) and Easter loaves placed in the
windows—a device which was found so efficient that the Jews did
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 345
not fail to adopt it in other towns, where many saved their houses
by it. Jews living in Christian houses were not molested; neither
were Hebrew physicians and lawyers, they being considered useful
members of society. Exceptions were made in favor of well-recom-
mended individuals. Thus, at the door of one house belonging to a
Jew, the mob is confronted by the porter: "Boys," says he, "leave him
alone! He is a good man, and often gives you work. I have been ten
years in his service." "All right!" say the rioters, and pass on.
When the outrages were stopped at last, and the excitement had
worn itself out, the city presented the strangest, wildest aspect. The
streets were as white as after a fall of snow, for one of the mob s chief
amusements had been to rip up every feather-bed and pillow they
came across, and fling out the contents.The wooden houses were shat-
tered, the furniture broken to pieces and left in heaps, mingled with
kitchen utensils and household goods of every kind. Here might be
seen the hulk of a grand piano, with lid and legs wrenched off and
strings hanging out; further on, fine mahogany reduced almost to
chips, with velvet rags still clinging to them, and close to that the debris
of painted furniture of the commonest description. Not a pane of glass,
not a window-frame, not a door was left whole. Inside the houses the
same ravages had been committed everywhere, with methodical regu-
larity; every object, even the smallest, was broken or spoiled for use;
the very stoves were demolished; nothing escaped destruction.
The pawnbrokers' offices were the first to suffer; then came the
public-houses, the wholesale wine and spirit shops, then the other
shops, and lastly whatever the mob set eyes on that belonged to Jews.
The marketplace or bazaar was one motley chaos of dry-goods, broken
crockery, ready-made clothes, iron-ware, leather goods, spilt flour and
grain. Of course, a vast amount of property was secured and carried
off by marauders of the poorer classes, especially women and children,
who followed the rioters for the purpose; but when a bill was posted
all over the city, explaining that such conduct would be considered as
robbery or secretion of stolen goods, and requiring all such unlawful
prizes to be delivered at the different police stations within three days,
whole wagon-loads began to arrive, not only from different parts of
the city, but even from the surrounding villages.These simpletons actu-
ally did not know that they were committing a blamable act and incur-
ring a severe responsibility. When questioned or rebuked, they
answered with the greatest candor: "Why, we did not steal these things;
they were lying around, so we picked them up. We meant no harm."
346 APPENDIX D
[...] [WJhatever historical causes may underlie the oft-recurring
popular outbreaks against the Jews, race animosity, and religious intol-
erance have never been alone at work, and, in our days, are no longer
so at all. The only case of systematic persecution of them from fanat-
ical motives is that of the Spanish Inquisition, though the motives were
far from unmixed, even there. At all events, if the fathers of St. Dominic
and their secular supporters did not object to enriching themselves
with the spoils of the wealthy Jews they burned, we must do them the
justice to acknowledge that they burned the poor ones quite as piously
and scrupulously. In all other instances "Jewish riots" begin sponta-
neously; something—sometimes a mere trifle—happens to infuriate
the mob, and they begin to kill and plunder.The massacres spread, rage
for a few days, then stop, and everything goes the old round again—
for a while. Ignorant fanaticism is only an accessory—true, a terrible
one—which comes into play with the greater violence the further the
occurrence is removed from us, in the "dark ages." But a significant
feature is that the notorious usurers are always the first to suffer, and
the bills and securities which hold whole provinces in bondage are the
first property sought after and destroyed.This was the case even in the
more than usually severe outbreak at the beginning of Richard I.s
reign, which ended in the horrible catastrophe of York,
1
 and the
monkish chronicler who records it in terms of unseemly exultation,
amid much revolting fanatical twaddle drops a word which strangely
reminds us of the burden of popular complaint which recurred all
through the riots of last spring. He calls the Jews "blood-suckers."
Another curious coincidence is that then, in England, as nine hundred
years later in Russia, "the rumor was spread that the King had issued
orders to massacre the Jews." The facility with which the ignorant
masses lend their ears to such absurdities betrays, at all events, a latent
though monstrously distorted consciousness of having received at the
hands of the race such wrongs and injuries as claim redress from their
natural protector, the governing power. The difference between then
and now, apart from the comparatively mild form of the recent parox-
ysms consequent on the general softening of men's natures, is chiefly
this: then, religious feeling was actively mixed up with economical
grievances and hideous reprisals, while now it is totally absent. And
never could this mediaeval specter be dragged forth to the light of our
sober, unfanatical age, to account for phenomena of which the real
1
 On March 16,1190, a mob massacred the Jewish community ofYork, England.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 347
causes must be obvious to every unbiased observer, were it not that by
far the greater part of the so-called "liberal press" in Europe is in the
hands of Hebrew editors and Hebrew writers—many of them men
of great culture and talent, of great and well-merited authority in the
world of letters and science, but whom it suits, from mistaken national
zeal, to shed a false light on certain events and sides of modern life, to
blind the eyes of superficial and docile readers with the dust of those
cheap and plausible phrases of which the shallow orators of 1789-93
have left us so ample a store.
1
 [...] It is time to drop the sentimental
liberal slang, through whose loose, wide meshes the biggest humbug
can slip unchallenged. When a question of vital import is presented to
us, the thing to do is to drive it into a corner and grapple with it, not
muffle it up in commonplaces long ago worn threadbare. The Jewish
question, in Eastern Europe and Western Russia, is such a question: let
us then, for once, look it square in the face. The Jews are disliked, nay,
hated in those parts, not because they believe and pray differently but
because they are a parasitical race who, producing nothing, fasten on
the produce of land and labor, and live on it, choking the breath of life
out of commerce and industry as sure as the creeper throttles the tree
that upholds it. They are despised, not because they are of different
blood, because they dress differently, eat peculiar food; not even
because, herding together in unutterable filth and squalor, they are a
loathsome and really dangerous element—a standing institution for
the propagation of all kinds of horrible diseases and contagions; but
because their ways are crooked, their manner abject,—because they
will not stand up for themselves and manfully resent an insult or
oppose vexation, but will take any amount of it if they can thereby
turn a penny, will smirk and cringe, and go off with a deadly grudge
at heart, which they will vent cruelly, ruthlessly, but in an underhand
manner, and not always on the offender, but on any or all belonging
to the offender s race. It is an essentially oriental feature, this making
light of servile forms, so the feeling of pride be secretly treasured and
revenge taken at some time and in some way—a feature which our
Jews could not have retained so unimpaired had they not always been
forcibly kept aloof, by their own rulers, from the ennobling influence
of that compound of Grecian refinement and Teutonic manliness
which we call modern culture, and which instills more than it teaches
that the forms of servitude are as degrading as the fact. The readiness
1
 The French revolutionaries.
348 APPENDIX D
with which they appeal to foreign sympathy and interference, and
which in any set of people holding the position of citizens would be
looked upon and punished as state treason of the worst kind, is but
another phase of their oriental nature—the inability to grasp the first
principles of state-life, or perhaps rather their determination not to
acknowledge themselves as belonging to any Gentile state. They are
not "persecuted." Only, from time to time, the popular patience—that
dike built up of ignorance, apathy, and habitual endurance—breaks;
then there is an outpouring of angry waters. True, some things have
become impossible. No invading conqueror, for instance, would
dream nowadays of farming to the Jews the churches of a conquered
people, as did the Poles when they held Galicia in the sixteenth
century and later, thus authorizing them to tax the people arbitrarily
for having divine service performed in their own temples. No
government would now lend itself to such iniquity. Still we have just
seen that, even without such open support, enough can be achieved
to exasperate the most long-suffering people and goad them into
momentary frenzy.
5. Samuel S. Cox, "Persecution of the Jews in Russia,"
Congressional Record, 47th Cong., 1st sess., 1882,13, pt. 7,
appendix, 652-53.
PERSECUTION OF JEWS.
History records that for 5,000 years this race has preserved its moral
worth and physical identity in a remarkable degree. Its faith has made
and kept its unity. Any other race less gifted with zeal, virtue, forti-
tude, tradition, pride, and lineage would long since have succumbed.
Its spirit has not been quelled by Moslem, Christian, or pagan
despotism. The intrinsic nobility and buoyancy of its nature has lifted
it above the chances and changes of time. It now stands forth as a
rare exemplar in art, intellect, and humanity, assisting to give laws of
toleration, moderation, and honor in the interest of civilization.
It is therefore with much earnestness, and speaking for the
Hebrews of the United States, and especially for those of the city of
New York, that I urged an expression by this Congress upon this
topic. Not alone because of the liberality of our Constitution in its
first and primal article as to the liberty of the soul in matters of faith
and doctrine; not alone because of the grand history of this "peculiar
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 349
people" among the nations; but because this country, as an asylum for
the persecuted and downtrodden, should give its moral emphasis
concerning a topic of such universal fraternity and significance.
In my former speech I quoted from impartial history, such as
WahTs Land of the Czar, Brenner's Excursions into Russia, and Julian
Allen s Autocracy in Poland and Russia,
1
 to show that the Hebrews
were treated as a degraded race by the rulers of Russia. They have
been driven like beasts with scourgings into army and navy and from
province to province. They have been treated with such contumely
as to redden the face of mankind with shame at the barbaric
outrages. Taxes without cessation, reason, or limit were followed by
personal inflictions, rape, robbery, and murder, from which there was
no respite. I venture to say that in the whole circle of mankind never
were two and a half million of people so maltreated by intense
brutality as the Hebrews of Russia, and none so causelessly
maltreated. The treatment of the Jews by the Barbary States and by
the Moslem of Arabia and Turkey bears no comparison.
If two years ago these sad Hebrews could appeal to their
American brethren to cast their eyes toward their misery, with a
hope that these inconceivable cruelties might be mitigated; if they
could, in fancy, picture our happy and free homes, and beseech us
to come to the rescue, surely we ought to give voice to emphasize
the humanity of our land, if we cannot otherwise go to their help,
or by reason of the laws of nations and comity intervene between
the alien government and its oppressed subjects.
I need not go to our precedents in the case Greece, Hungary, or
Ireland to support a resolution of sympathy and succor. The supine
nature of our present administration, if not of the Committee of
Foreign Affairs in Congress, seems to forbid our even expressing our
detestation of these horrors on horrors. It would offend the Father-
Czar. It would destroy the entente cordiale which has always existed
between the two nations.
Perhaps, in considering the details of these wrongs to this great
race by this Sclav power, we may change our idea of intervention.
Let us see!
In making this review I will not requote history. Let me confine
myself to the annals of the recent past.
1
 O.W.Wahl, The Land of the Czar (1875); Robert Bremner, Excursions in the Interior of
Russia (1839); Julian Allen, Autocrasy in Poland and Russia (1854).
350 APPENDIX D
HORROR S OF l88l.
Up to the ist of January, 1881, the south and west of Russia was a
scene of unparalleled horrors. Since that time these enormities have
been intensified—men murdered, infants dashed to death or roasted
alive, and married women and maidens violated—compared with
which the loss of property is nothing. The pillage, firing, and razing
of whole streets of Jewish quarters were but incidents in the inhu-
man work.The consequence has been homelessness and emigration.
While this carnage was going on the Russian authorities were either
sympathetic with the mob or apathetic of results. Owing to the revo-
lutionary condition of Russia, the Jews, by some peculiar pronunci-
ation of a word, were made the scapegoat of Nihilism. Even ministers
of state issued edicts which looked to the imbitterment of this feel-
ing and an addition to the list of murders of the Jews. The German
anti-Semitic feeling gave renewed vigor to these calamities.
The Czar Alexander II was assassinated on the 3d of March, 1881.
One consequence was that the Panslavist feeling took shape and
form. [...]
Placards were issued declaring the Czar had turned over the
Jewish properties to his pious children. Sundays and saints' days were
chosen for the general uprising against the Jews. On the yth of May,
at Smielo, thirteen men were killed and twenty wounded and sixteen
hundred left homeless. In the old capital of Russia, at Kiew, a riot,
was preordained by the mob, with the same consequences. Kiew is
a city of 140,000. It has 20,000 Jews. The Cossacks stood by while
infants were thrown from windows. Arson was common. In fact it is
a Russian crime. Here 2,000 Jews were left without shelter.
The next day these scenes were renewed at Browry and at
Berezowka. Taking advantage of the absence of the men at the
synagogue, the women were ravished. Again, near Kiew, on the loth
of May, at Konolop, and Wasilkow, the drunken, throat-cutting
miscreants invaded every precinct of domestic sanctity. Whole
provinces caught the infection of violence. The inertness of the
governor left the populace free to believe that they were carrying
out the will of the Czar.
At Alexandrowsk three hundred out of four hundred families were
ruined, and property destroyed amounting to over one hundred
million dollars. Everywhere these riots were proclaimed in advance.
They were not confined to the cities and towns. The farms in
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
351
the province of Ekaterinoslav were destroyed. The rioters were
dressed up as police!
The geography of Russia has such an extent and so peculiar a
terminology that to name is almost reiterate. Along the Dnieper, in
the same month, and down to the seaport of Odessa, where one
would suppose precautions might have been taken, a six hours' riot
resulted in death and violation.The loss was three million rubles. At
other places, and in one month, these horrors spread over Southern
Russia. They spread to Astrakhan, and even into Siberia.
Outside of Poland there are nearly 2,000,000 Jews in Russia, and
Poland had thus far escaped. The Catholics and Jews lived together
in harmony; whereupon General Ignatieff directed the governor to
raise a commission to "consider how the Jews should be treated!"
Then arose the feeling which led to the Warsaw riots.
During the rest of the year of 1881 these outrages continued.
Sometimes they were led by merchants out of commercial jealousy.
Women joined, like fiends of the Commune,
1
 in the attacks. Horrors
too terrible to describe were all too common. These Sclavonic
2
 vira-
goes became parties to the atrocities upon their own sex.
August came, and it was only when the harvesting became
urgent that these atrocities ceased.
The day of atonement in the Hebrew calendar was selected by
the orthodox Greeks for the destruction of synagogues.
In all these pillaging raids the ukase of the Czar, whether genuine
or not, was the trumpet which roused fanaticism and rapacity. Even
the accomplished actress, Sarah Bernhardt, was mobbed at Kief and
at Odessa in November on suspicion of being a Jewess! [...]
PRETEXTS FOR THE OUTRAGES.
Why was not the indignation of Europe exerted to suppress these
outrages? I answer, first, because, the sentiment against the Jews was
fostered in the neighboring German nations as well as in Turkey to
some extent; second, because the news was suppressed. No telegraphs
or papers with true accounts were permitted to be sent over the
1
 The Paris Commune, the short-lived revolutionary government established by work-
ers and radicals at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Economic and living condi-
tions in the Commune were desperate, and the Communards fiercely but ineffectually
defended Paris against besieging armies in the spring of 1871.
2
 Slavic.
352 APPENDIX D
Russian border. Over a vast area of country, from the Black Sea to the
Baltic, these scandals upon our century, these outrages whose type is
mediaeval, have gone to history with scarcely a protest.
In Russia the attempts to investigate them only added fresh fuel
to the flame. The experts found no language or code to express their
reprobation. They limited their language and methods of redress to
the invention of new phrases of excommunication and new penal-
ties for the oppressed Hebrew. [...]
WHO RESPONSIBLE.
Is it said that the Russian peasantry, and not the government, are
responsible, I answer: if the peasantry of Russia are too ignorant or
debased to understand the nature of this cruel persecution, they
have warrant for their conduct in the customs and laws of Russia
to which I have referred. These discriminate against the Jews. They
have reference to their isolation, their separation from Russian
protection, their expulsion from certain parts of the empire, and
their religion. When a peasant observes such forceful movements
and authoritative discrimination in a government against a race, it
arouses his ignorance and inflames his fanatical zealotry. Adding this
to the jealousy of the Jews as middlemen and business men, and you
may account for, but not justify, these horrors.
6. Abram S. Isaacs, "Will the Jews Return to Palestine?" The
Century (May 1883): 156-57.
Miss Emma Lazarus has won such merited praise for her warm and
impassioned championship, both in verse and prose, of the Jewish
race, that it may seem ungracious in an American Israelite—who
has long been aware of her genius and powers—to take exception
to the logic and tendency of the article from her vigorous pen in
the February issue of your magazine, under the title "The Jewish
Problem." But the importance of the subject referred to and the
necessity of due caution in its discussion lead me to regret that Miss
Lazarus has written in so positive and unqualified a strain. I refer,
not to her just and admirable summary of Jewish history, but to her
advocacy of a separate Jewish nationality.
i. It is most assuredly an exaggeration to state that "whenever two
Israelites of ordinary intelligence come together, the possibility, nay
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS
353
the probability, of again forming a united nation is seriously
discussed."
2. To Mr. Oliphants personal efforts in behalf of the persecuted
Russian Hebrews,
1
 I bear grateful testimony; but the difficulties in
the way of colonizing at present a strip of land in Gilead—his special
project—which have been pointed out by experienced critics,
counterbalance, in my opinion, the extravagant laudations of a few
enthusiastic advocates, who, because Scripture has been interpreted
as predicting the restoration of Palestine to the Jews, deem it a reli-
gious duty to favor every scheme for its colonization. Neither the
land nor the Jewish people is ready for such a Utopian movement.
When the Turk is expelled from Europe, and the Jewish proletariat
abroad—who alone appear most desirous of emigration—are better
equipped for industrial and agricultural work, it is a possibility that
the fertile valleys of Palestine may be settled by colonists—but not
by large numbers, who will be attracted elsewhere.
3. It is most unfortunate that Miss Lazarus cites the views of a
young Russian Jew as summing up "the desires and ambitions of the
nation." Among such views it is stated that "the religious mission of
the Jews belongs to the past." No objection is made to intermarriage,
and a central government, either in Palestine or South America, is
advocated. If the mission of Judaism is past, the Russian Jews might
save all further persecution by becoming Christians. If it be true that
"the racial tie binds Jews together, even though they discard all reli-
gion," why form a separate nationality, unless to establish a little free
religious and atheistic commune, under the Jewish name? Certainly a
new Ezra, whom Miss Lazarus states the Jews of our generation "can
surely furnish," if he be at all worthy of his ancient namesake, would
be rather uncomfortable for such Utopians.
4. It is unwise to advocate a separate nationality for the Jews at a
time when anti-Semites are creating the impression that Jews can
never be patriots, but are only Palestinians, Semites, Orientals. In fact,
at the recent Anti-Semitic Dresden Congress,
2
 it was resolved that
the Jews be sent back to Palestine. Even those Jews who share the
traditional belief in a future restoration,—and who are rather proud
of being recognized as Americans in America, Frenchmen in France,
1
 Laurence Oliphant (1829-88), British author and world traveller who advocated the
establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. His publications include The Land of Gilead
(1881) and "The Jew and the Eastern Question" (The Nineteenth Century, Aug. 1882).
2
 In 1882 the First International Anti-Jewish Congress met in Dresden, Germany.
354 APPENDIX D
Englishmen in England, and so on in every land which guarantees
them civil and religious liberty,—would resent such a polite invita-
tion. In fact, to advocate such a plan now, in this century of political
emancipation in every country save Russia, Roumania, and Coney
Island,
1
 is a tacit confession that our enemies are right, and that the
Jews cannot be patriots, and have no fatherland but Palestine. There
are, however, reverent Israelites,—among them some of our most
scholarly and representative rabbis,—who think that Judaism s best
work has been done outside of Palestine, and believe that the tradi-
tional view about a literal restoration must be modified or aban-
doned. At any rate, the most conservative Jew will understand that
if, in Miss Lazarus' words, "it has been reserved for Christians to
proclaim the speedy advent of that Jewish triumph"—the restora-
tion—the conversion of the Jews is an event generally associated by
pious Christians with the final ingathering of the Jewish nation.
5. But, it may be asked, if the prospect of emigration en masse to
Palestine and the establishment of a separate nationality be denied
them, what hope is afforded the million and more Russian Israelites,
and the several hundred thousand in Roumania, belonging to the
poorer classes? The answer is, they must remain where they are, and
it is the duty of their leaders and spokesmen to champion their
rights, even as the German Israelites have finally acquired their polit-
ical emancipation. It has been a long contest in Germany since
Moses Mendelssohn taught the German that the Jew could be both
a man and a brother. Let the Russian Mendelssohn, let the Russian
Heine, let the Russian Borne, let the Russian Zunz and Riesser
2
 and
the rest, step forward and champion their brethren at the bar of
European public opinion. The world will respect such action as
indicative of a nobler manhood and a higher faith. Riesser did not
spare his own brethren. Mendelssohn and his school fought the
bigotry and superstition which degraded their co-religionists, and
1
 New York's Coney Island was notoriously anti-semitic in the late nineteenth century,
and Jews were the target of an insulting, controversial campaign designed to keep
them out. See, for example, "Mr. Corbin and the Jews," The New-York Times (23 July
1879): i-2.
2
 Karl Ludwig Borne (1786—1837), German Jewish journalist and leader of the literary
movement known as Young Germany; Leopold Zunz (1794-1886), distinguished
German Jewish historian; Gabriel Riesser (1806-63), lawyer and politician who
fought for the emancipation of German Jews and became the first Jewish judge in
Germany.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 355
made their religion a mass of antiquated forms and nerveless prac-
tices. Let the true restoration be preached to the hundreds of thou-
sands who are ignorant of modern culture and modern industries.
Let the best preparation for citizenship in enlightened lands begin
in the scattered towns and governments of Russia by better schools
and improved facilities for training the children, so that they may be
transformed into men akin in spirit and aim to the brilliant writers,
poets, philanthropists, and statesmen who are the pride and boast of
other lands, where once the stone of reproach weighed heavily upon
the Jew, which he has bravely rolled away. To begin this work is the
duty primarily of the wealthy Russian Israelite; and the example of
a few like Baron Guinzberg, Abraham Brodsky, and Poliakoff,
J
 is
worthy of wider and more general emulation. Nor can it be doubted
that in such a movement might be enlisted the aid of the "Alliance
Israelite"
2
—which was not founded to colonize Palestine, but to
educate the illiterate Jewish population of the East, and plant schools
in all directions. If, in addition to such efforts on the part of Jews to
secure political emancipation and social and educational reform, the
Church shall more generally imitate the action of a few of its repre-
sentatives in Russia, and strive to awaken a Christianity more in
accord with the gentle teachings of its Founder,—who can doubt
that in a decade or two the Jewish problem in Russia will have been
solved, and the Russian Israelite will have no more ground of
complaint than his brethren in France, England, and America?
In the brief space necessarily accorded a communication of this
kind, and in a magazine like THE CENTURY, I have not attempted
any detailed criticism. Let me add that paper schemes for the colo-
nization of Palestine, which are chronicled with all the gravity of an
item about the sea-serpent, are not original with Mr. Oliphant or
George Eliot. In the "New York World " of September 28,1866, Mr.
Henry Durand,
3
 of Geneva, Switzerland, had a far more practica-
ble plea for the settlement of Palestine by Jew and Christian, and
the revival of the Orient by the development of its industry and
commerce. It was expected by Mr. Durand and his friends that the
1
 Russian Jewish community leaders.
2
 An international Jewish organization founded in 1860. In the wake of the pogroms,
the Alliance Universelle Israelite was working to provide relief for Russian Jewish
refugees.
3
 Henry Dunant. See J.B.S.,"The Holy Land," The World [NewYork] (28 Sept. 1866): I -2.
356 APPENDIX D
Jews would aid, Turkey would cooperate, the Rothschilds provide
capital, and the Emperor Napoleon give his support. But Mr.
Durand s scheme shared the fate of all the pseudo-Messiahs who
appear in the East from time to time—it ended in smoke; and so
will every attempt, under present circumstances, to colonize
Palestine on any large scale with a view of organizing a Jewish
nation. That such a phantasy should be seriously advocated in our
day is not so surprising when one reflects that the present where-
abouts of the Ten Tribes
1
 still forms a subject of effervescent dispute,
and within recent years a unique literature has appeared devoted to
the claims of the Anglo-Saxon race to be considered their lineal
descendants. It is only in England, perhaps, that such ideas can
germinate "with miraculous rapidity."
2
7. The American Jew: An Expose of His Career (New York, 1888)
3-6, 8, 205, 207-09, 216-18.
HIS ARRIVAL IN AMERICA.
Toward the close of the year 1825 a band of Polish Jews, about one
hundred in number, landed in New York. Previously there were
hardly any Jews in this country. This band was under the leadership
of one Gugenheim; and as they travelled through Europe to the land
of their destination, they reminded one of those patriarchal families
so often mentioned in the Old Testament. They were bound
together, not only by the ties of common religion, but by those of
common misfortune; for they had suffered persecution at the hands
of the Russians, which persecution, however, they fully merited.
These Jews, when first seen by the people of this country,
presented a type different from any of the other immigrants that
ever have landed upon our hospitable shores.They attracted unusual
attention by their hooked noses, restless eyes, elongated ears, square
nails, flat feet, round knees, and soft hands.
Myriads of parasites could be seen by the naked eye, nestling
upon their dirty heads. They wore long coats dripping with filth,
1
 The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, originally the population of the northern kingdom of
Israel, were taken into captivity by the Assyrians in 721—715 BCE and never reap-
peared.
2
 "The Jewish Problem," 277.
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 357
while their faces and beards looked suety with sluttishness.
The above description of this batch of Jew emigrants is not in
the least exaggerated.
Not one among them had with him any other wearing apparel
than the scanty garments he wore. When they landed they had no
friends to welcome them; they had no resources; they were igno-
rant of the language of the country; and it was doubtful whether
one among them had sufficient money to pay for a night's rest in
the cheapest Bowery lodging-house of to-day. But within a few
years after their arrival we find the greater part of these Jews occu-
pying prominent positions in the financial world of the metropolis.
Later only we find their descendants prominent as bankers in New
York, prominent as bankers in Chicago, in St. Louis, and in other
leading cities in the United States. It is the descendants of the above-
described Jew immigrants, who to-day display with vulgar effron-
tery their wealth, who control the clothing business, the tobacco
business, the sugar business, of this great country, and who establish
newspapers that cast a stigma upon American journalism, and who
seek to direct and mould public opinion.
How have these Jews accomplished all this? Is it by their surpass-
ing intelligence? No. There is no race of men more intelligent than
the Aryan. Is it by any useful invention on their part, or by devot-
ing themselves to mechanical pursuits? No, certainly not.
Again, the most diligent inquiry fails to discover any consider-
able number of Jew farmers throughout the territory of the United
States. One will look long before he finds a Jew laborer among the
workmen who build our railroads, work our mines, or develop the
resources of this country.
The Jews soft hands and curved fingers grasp only the values that
others have produced. Wherever the Jew is allowed to establish
himself, dishonesty takes the place of honesty; immortality, of virtue;
disease, of health; sluttishness, of cleanliness; anarchy, of order. One
has but to study the social and political history of the different
nations in Europe, during the last fifty years, to discover the poison-
ous work of the Jew. He has sapped the foundations of every
government. He has reduced France from a nation of first rank to
a second-class power. He has made Russia to writhe under inces-
sant internal revolutions. He has ruined Turkey. He has so thor-
oughly impregnated England with his own Jewish cowardice, that
England's martial spirit has sadly deteriorated. He is now carrying
358 APPENDIX D
out his work of deterioration and destruction in the United States.
From the time when the Jew first appeared upon the face of the
earth, to this day, history does not record a single invention that can
be claimed by the Jews.
They have never founded a state of any magnitude, though they
have always been more numerous than the Romans, who
conquered the world, and now exceed in numbers any of the minor
peoples in Europe. With a momentary exception in Moorish Spain,
they have never dominated any people, or conciliated any people,
even in the East, where they have had fair chances, or founded any
great city. [...]
We have been accused of being Jew-baiters, of wishing "to create
a revolution" against the Jews. This is not true. We despise only
villany, and our aim is to direct the attention of Americans to the
danger that lurks in the Jew.
THE JEW SUMMARIZED.
[T]he Jew is a true parasite, type of a mean race, without intellec-
tual insight or industrial aptitude,—of a race that has a history
extending over four thousand years, in the whole of which time it
cannot lay claim to the credit of any, even the most insignificant,
discovery or invention useful to mankind.
[...] He must prey on industrial races, or sink to the lowest depths
of degradation, like his brethren in Russia and elsewhere, where
cruel laws—as they deem them—have forced them to earn their
bread by the sweat of their brows.
The American Jews wish to emancipate their brethren in Russia
from this cruel necessity. America is large enough, and rich enough,
and stupid enough, to support them all.They have a brilliant future
in America, such as no other country offers; they can look forward
with confidence to grasp the reins of power in this country, and
gratify their boundless vanity and ambition; they want to add to
their numbers by assembling all their race here, and already active
steps are being taken to import the Russian Jews, the dregs of the
Hebrew race, the most degraded specimens of humanity,—a people
who, nevertheless, amid all their degradation, believe that they are
Jehovah's chosen people, destined in his good time to place their
foot upon the necks of the Gentile races.
Shall America be further invaded by these degraded people, long-
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 359
ing to be emancipated from toil, that they may share with their more
prosperous brethren in the plenty of the Gentiles, whom God has
given over into their hands? We refuse citizenship, and with good
reason, to the Chinese, who are as highly an industrial people as
ourselves,—race with broad intellect, and keen insight into the secrets
of nature; a race that in its insolation discovered the mariner s compass,
invented printing and gunpowder, and which for more than three
thousand years maintained creditable rivalry with the civilizations of
the Western world. We refuse to receive these people on our shores;
and shall we allow the degraded Russian Jews, the lowest dregs of a
degraded parasitic race, free asylum, knowing that they come, not to
stand with us shoulder to shoulder to urge on the destinies of this
great nation, but as conquerors coming to dominate over the Gentiles,
whom "God has given into their hands for a spoil?"
1
 This is the vital
question of the age for Americans. The Red Indian has run his career,
and will solve his own destiny; the negro is developing industrial
capacities, and fitting himself for the performance of useful functions
in the social organism; the Spanish races will submit to the inevitable,
as the countless millions of the next two centuries roll southward. But
the Jew! Shall he be allowed to impede the onward march of the
American nation, to ride on its shoulders, to prey on its vitals, and
finally to grasp the power which they have achieved by their triumphs
over nature, and subject them under his feet?
We do not open our gates to these people because we want
them. They have no arts to teach us, no new industries to implant
among us; they bring no skilled or intelligent labor, no industrial
aptitude; they bring us no strength, no wholesome moral influence,
no kindly sympathies. They come with no friendly acknowledg-
ment for hospitable reception: they come to prey on us; and, know-
ing that, no sane people should let them in. [...]
The race has not one quality which renders it a valuable acqui-
sition to our ranks, but a thousand which render it desirable that we
purge ourselves of them; not one quality to command our esteem,
but a thousand which inspire us with contempt. We have nothing
to hope from their presence, but a great deal to fear; and the time
is ripe for taking a determined stand on this subject, before the
arrival of fresh hosts of the degraded race from Russia. Let this
threatened visitation of a physically and morally polluted race be
i
See Judges 2:14.
360 APPENDIX D
stayed at once by the resolute fiat of the American People. Let the
Jews of this country understand; that the American people do not
want, and will not receive, the dregs of a race which has won only
scorn and contempt from the people of Europe.
But it is not enough to stop here. We want no Jews in this coun-
try; we want no parasites on our industrial organism; we are
ourselves capable of consuming all the wealth we produce. We want
no festering cancer in the body politic; it is not healthy, it must be
eradicated. [...] [L]et not our nation,—this great nation whose
industrial aptitudes, intellectual powers, and natural resources are
sufficient to raise it to the highest pinnacle of human greatness,—
let not our nation be humbled to the dust by armies of our
brethren, raised with the gold of conquering Israel. Let not the
American people incur the passionate hate, the vindictive
vengeance, of a race which for ages has treasured up in its bosom
the memory of the well-merited but bitterly resented scorn and
contempt with which Christendom has treated it; of a race merci-
less and cruel as hell; of a race that never spared a foeman; of a
haughty, insolent, vindictive race, that will recognize in their
triumph abundant evidence of their own superiority, and of
Jehovah's favor. [...]
On this point but one sentiment should animate the American
people, and this should find expression in the one curt but emphatic
cry, "The Jew must go!"
SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 361
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[Gottheil, Richard]. The Life of Gustave Gottheil: Memoir of a Priest in
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Graetz,H[einrich]. Geschichte derjuden von den Altesten Zeiten bis aufdie
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. History of the Jews. Trans. Bella Lowy et al. 6 vols. Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 1891-98.
. Popular History of the Jews. Trans. A.B. Rhine. Ed. Alexander
Harkavy. 6 vols. New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1919.
Heine, Heinrich. The Complete Poems of Heinrich Heine. Trans. Hal
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. Heinrich Heine's Memoirs. Ed. Gustav Karpeles. Trans. Gilbert
Cannan. 2 vols. 1910. New York: Arno, 1973.
. Historisch-Kritische Gesamtausgabe derWerke. Diisseldorfer Ausgabe.
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Campe, 1973-97.
Jacob, H.E. The World of Emma Lazarus. New York: Schocken, 1949.
Kessner, Carole S. "The Emma Lazarus-Henry James Connection."
American Literary History 3 (1991): 46-62.
. "Matrilineal Dissent: The Rhetoric of Zeal in Emma Lazarus,
Marie Syrkin, and Cynthia Ozick." Women of the Word: Jewish
Women and Jewish Writing. Ed. Judith R. Baskin. Detroit: Wayne
State UP, 1994. 197-215.
Lathrop, Rose Hawthorne. Papers. Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne
Archives. Hawthorne, New York.
Lichtenstein, Diane. "Emma Lazarusr Jewish American Women Writers: A
Bio-Bibliographical and Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Ann R. Shapiro.
Westport: Greenwood, 1994. 189-96.
. Writing Their Nations: The Tradition of Nineteenth-Century American
Jewish Writers. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1992.
Merriam, Eve. Emma Lazarus: Woman with a Torch. New York: Citadel,
1956.
Rusk, Ralph L., ed. Letters to Emma Lazarus. New York: Columbia UP,
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SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS 363