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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe 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!"
The words of this sonnet express what made America such a beacon of hope around the world for over two centuries. This is the America Trump and the Republican Quislings are trying to destroy.
Mme. Defarge
(7,981 posts)PatrickforO
(14,514 posts)But...since we now have an insane, sociopathic megalomaniac as our 'president,' here's a poem perhaps more apropos:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who saidTwo vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Because if Trump and the Republican 'rule and ruin' party want to make this land, indeed this world, a desert, they are going about it just right.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,746 posts)Actually, I'm one of those weirdos who memorizes things just for the heck of it.
Both of them are powerful and need repeating and reciting as often as possible.
hedda_foil
(16,368 posts)I just noticed this line: Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
That implies that the statue is off the west coast, where the sun sets so to speak. It's actually at the sunrise gate, isn't it?
Strange.
Chellee
(2,086 posts)For example, if you're on a ship looking at the statue as you come into America, you're staring into the west.
Also, this is the sunset of your trials, this is the end of your suffering. Tomorrow is a new day and a bright beginning in a new land.
hedda_foil
(16,368 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)We're forgetting our heritage in the scam name of phony patriotism.
R&