A gift from the people of France, she has watched over New York Harbor since 1886, and on her base is a tablet inscribed with words penned by Emma Lazarus in 1883: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

The words written on the Statue of Liberty are not inscribed on the statue itself, but on a bronze plaque mounted inside the pedestal. They are the sonnet “The New Colossus” by American poet Emma Lazarus, written in 1883.

The most famous lines are:

“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!”

Key Context:

• Not on the Statue: The poem is not carved into the statue’s exterior. The plaque was added in 1903, 17 years after the statue’s dedication.
• A Fundraising Effort: Lazarus wrote the poem to help raise money for the statue’s pedestal.
• Later Significance: While not initially a central part of the statue’s identity, the poem powerfully redefined the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of welcome and refuge for immigrants arriving in America, especially those who passed by it on their way to Ellis Island.

So, while the statue holds a tablet in her left hand inscribed with “JULY IV MDCCLXXVI” (July 4, 1776, the date of American independence), the words most famously associated with her meaning are from Lazarus’s poem on the interior plaque.