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A Foreign Shore
 
I spied a relic on a foreign shore,
abandoned on its island in the bay:
‘Mother of Exiles’, who welcomed in the poor
and homeless, lay in ruins and decay.
Only the statue’s massive feet remained
with broken shackles, symbol of the free;
nearby a torch, encased in gold, retained
no flame, no beacon-glow to light the sea.
No more the world-wide message would she spell
to free the huddled masses, unconstrained –
wiped out by forces no one could foretell.
Beyond, a desert, boundless, bare and void,
a graveyard for democracy, the knell
of shattered hopes, a million dreams destroyed.

Sylvia Fairley


 

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Sylvia Fairley would be pleased to hear them

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