Explore "The Choice" by Emma Lazarus on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I saw in dream the spirits unbegot, / Veiled, floating phantoms, lost in twilight space; / For one the hour had struck, he paused; the place / Rang with an awful Voice: / "Soul, choose thy lot! / Two paths are offered; that, in velvet-flower, / Slopes easily to every earthly prize. / Follow the multitude and bind thine eyes, / Thou and thy sons' sons shall have peace with power. / This narrow track skirts the abysmal verge, / Here shalt thou stumble, totter, weep and bleed, / All men shall hate and hound thee and thy seed, / Thy portion be the wound, the stripe, the scourge. / But in thy hand I place my lamp for light, / Thy blood shall be the witness of my Law, / Choose now for all the ages! " / Then I saw / The unveiled spirit, grown divinely bright, / Choose the grim path. He turned, I knew full well / The pale, great martyr-forehead shadowy-curled, / The glowing eyes that had renounced the world, / Disgraced, despised, immortal Israel.