YOUR WRETCHED

"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus which is affixed to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus wrote the sonnet, after some persuasion by friends, for an auction to raise money for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Although you may not be familiar with the poem’s title, you may be more familiar with lines 10 and 11 of the poem, which are: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The poem was cast onto a bronze plaque and installed inside the pedestal's lower level in 1903.