THE last five lines of Emma Lazarus’s sonnet were engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty (1886), welcoming desperate immigrants from Europe into the New World in the late nineteenth century. Now, ironically, Europe itself is the goal of the current wave of migration of desperate people seeking refuge and new hope. Lazarus’s phrase “wretched refuse” jars but shouldn’t detract from her idealism.

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 harbor 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!”