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!’
Written as part of an effort to raise money for the construction of the 89ft pedestal, the poem has spoken powerfully to successive generations. Today it is often invoked as a counterpoint to Donald Trump’s inflammatory xenophobic rhetoric, and most of you ran with this idea, producing accomplished if sometimes predictable entries. The best are printed below and earn their authors £20 each. Commendations go to Ann Drysdale, Frank McDonald, R.M. Goddard and Ray Kelley, who all came at the challenge from a more oblique angle.Basil Ransome-Davies The goddess Libertas is poised erect, Copper beneath her sheath of verdigris, An emblem of two nations to respect The true, republican equality Inscribed in both their founding documents. The vivid dream that lights her torch is noble — To banish tyranny and ignorance — Her cause compassionate, her vision global. Who now desires to reaffix the chains That lie inert and shattered at her feet? Take Liberty away, and what remains But an oppressor swollen with conceit, A monstrous ego-wish devouring all, Whose monument’s no statue but a wall?
Paul Freeman The Giantess has turned a ghastly green; sick-visagèd and unwelcoming of those ill-fated folk who’ve taken to their toes. Yet if their bloodline manifests a gene our Lady craves, they’re honoured with a keen acceptance; thus she strives to ever close the door on creed and hue which might impose a demographic shift from what has been.
‘Take heed!’ she cries. ‘I’m sealing off this land. Oh fiery torch, deter the migrant ship! This beacon is a cudgel in my hand, this rigid grin a sneer upon my lip; for pale-faced Evangelics are the brand I choose to brave the trans-Atlantic trip.’
Brian Murdoch Brazen (though not a giant, not at all), Scoffing and sneering at all men and lands, A self-important orange figure stands. His nickname (his real one is rather small) Is very, very easy to recall: It’s ‘One Mean Mother’. His miniature hands Uplift a middle digit. He commands The building of an immigrant-proof wall. I’ll make our country great again, tweets he, So keep your wretched riff-raff well away, Let teeming masses stay beyond the sea Or let them huddle by the Mexique Bay. I’m in charge, not old lady Liberty. They can’t afford my hotels anyway.
Chris O’Carroll Like a loud, brazen slut for wealth and fame, Helpless astride what he can’t comprehend, He’s weak and ignorant, but must pretend He’s got the strength and smarts to win this game. Atop a wall gold-lettered with his name He plants vast sculpted feet as if to send The message, ‘I will quickly put an end To anyone who contradicts my claim That Mexicans do every sort of crime (And other Latin gangster types as well). We’ve built this wall bad hombres cannot climb. Our country’s locked like one vast prison cell. Newcomers once found welcome in a rhyme, But we don’t want you now, so go to Hell!’
Sylvia Fairley Usurp this outsize woman with a flame That lights the poor and needy of this land, I seize the torch, this portal must be manned By one of giant stature, not a dame. The huddled masses I intend to tame As by the harbour, manspreading, I stand; The wretched refuse, foreigners, are banned And with a wall I’ll curb the beaners’ game. Then once I’ve quelled the threat from Mexico I’ll look to ancient lands across the sea, Bring an official end, I’ll lay them low. I am the new colossus, I decree, I raise my torch; its lustrous gleam will show My god-like form, revealed for all to see.
Bill Greenwell If you were sailing past this wave-worn plinth, Its old words might have seemed mere platitudes When speeches bloat around you, news is synth, And the brave new world is in some nasty moods. Unchiselled for the mean time, here are subs: If you like malls, come in and have an eyeful; Come in, if you like narcissistic clubs; Enter at will, for an over-the-counter rifle.
Bombastic slogans, short-fuse rhetoricians, Enough to go around; and redneck preachers. America First! We don’t need your permissions. If you are foreign now, you suck like leeches. If things change, call. Right now there is no muddling, And as for your masses, please quit all that huddling.
Sylvia O. Smith Stop giving us your tired, your poor; We’ll only make them poorer. Your huddled masses looking for Free air just make us sorer. An exiled mother at the door? We’ll snatch her kids, ignore her. Obamacare? There’ll be no more — Just pay a health insurer. Let wretched refuse quit our shore, And welcome, rich off-shorer! But if you’re tempest-tost, unfed, Here’s our advice to you: Drop dead!
Your next challenge is to encapsulate the life story of a well-known person, living or dead, in three limericks. Please email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 June.
Comments