Explore "Gifts" by Emma Lazarus on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"O World-God, give me Wealth! " the Egyptian cried. / His prayer was granted. High as heaven, behold / Palace and Pyramid; the brimming tide / Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold. / Armies of slaves toiled ant-wise at his feet, / World-circling traffic roared through mart and street, / His priests were gods, his spice-balmed kings enshrined, / Set death at naught in rock-ribbed charnels deep. / Seek Pharaoh's race to-day and ye shall find / Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep.
"O World-God, give me beauty! " cried the Greek. / His prayer was granted. All the earth became / Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak, / Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame, / Peopled the world with imaged grace and light. / The lyre was his, and his the breathing might / Of the immortal marble, his the play / Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue. / Go seek the sun-shine race, ye find to-day / A broken column and a lute unstrung.