Two sonnets to mark American Independence Day.

The first, by Robert Frost examines the emergence of American consciousness; the second, by Emma Lazarus, was written for the fundraising campaign for the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour (Lazarus, though her heart was doubtless in the right place, could have worded the third-last line more diplomatically).

 

            THE GIFT OUTRIGHT

 

The land was ours before we were the land’s.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realising westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.          

 

 

            THE NEW COLOSSUS

 

Not like the brazen giant of  Greek fame,

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

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbour that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “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!”