C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887)
Gifts
“O W
His prayer was granted. High as heaven, behold
Palace and pyramid; the brimming tide
Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold.
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
Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep.
His prayer was granted. All the earth became
Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak,
Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame;
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
A broken column and a lute unstrung.
His prayer was granted. The vast world was chained
A captive to the chariot of his pride;
The blood of myriad provinces was drained
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
The imperial race of everlasting Rome.
His prayer was granted: he became the slave
Of the Idea, a pilgrim far and wide,
Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged with none to save.
The Pharaohs knew him; and when Greece beheld,
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.