A poem by Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" is inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. Its last lines read:
"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!"
But heck. These days, who wants to build a country with riffraff like this? The immigration bill now before Congress has provisions that are a lot more au courant. So perhaps its time we make a few adjustments to the final lines of Emma's little poem. How about this as a closer:
I'll take your best, the rest ignore,
Their yearnings are of no concern to me,
I've had my fill of wretched poor,
They'll look elsewhere, when they've a need to flee,
My lamp's gone dark, I'll take no more!
*******
