"The New Colossus," Emma Lazarus

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!"

From Selected Poems, part of the Library of America's American Poets Project. Emma Lazarus was one of this nation's first successful Jewish authors, and one-and-a-half lines of this poem have been memorized by virtually every citizen in the last century. (Historical note: the air-bridged harbor really did frame twin cities in 1883, because Brooklyn was still an independent community, and would remain so for another fifteen years.)