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!"
- Emma Lazarus.

I never noticed until yesterday that the Statue of Liberty's back foot is up, that she walks the flame forward into the world. And that there are broken chains at her feet.

Said Edouard de Laboulaye, who apparently had the idea of building a statue at all: "The American Liberty... does not hold an incendiary torch, but a beacon which enlightens."

emma lazarus, bronze, grand canyon national park, grand canyon, the colossus