C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887)
The World’s Justice
I
That on some far, foreign coast,
Buried ages long from fame,
Had been found a remnant lost
Of that hoary race who dwelt
By the golden Nile divine,
Spake the Pharaohs’ tongue, and knelt
At the moon-crowned Isis’s shrine,—
How at reverend Egypt’s feet
Pilgrims from all lands would meet!
That anigh the desert place
Where once blossomed Babylon,
Scions of a mighty race
Still survived, of giant build,—
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!
And Assyria’s bloom unworn,
Ere the mythic Homer sung,
Ere the gods of Greece were born,
Lived the nation of one God,
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!
Scattered broadcast o’er the lands,
Knit in spirit nigh and far,
With indissoluble bands.
Half the world adores their God,
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.