Liberty Revised

Once a torch of welcome, a guiding light
held high to shine its hope across the bay;
beacon for those wary souls who lost their way,
but barely a century before commanded night.
Mother forgive us for allowing such plight
to befall your children you led from gray
waters to shore where pray becomes prey,
Mother of Exiles, now just Mother of White.

“Keep them, the tired, the poor, the huddled knaves,
my torch now burns pure white, a warning flame:
homeless, wretched, clustered hills of future graves,
tombstones await to be etched with your names,
this land once built on the broke backs of slaves,
now lives on shifting sands of guilt and blame!”