POEM OF THE WEEK

George Moses Horton (17981883) was North Carolina’s first published author – despite being born into slavery. Students at the local university would pay for his poems; he saved up to buy his freedom, but his owner refused to grant it, and his first two collections were published while still in bondage. “On Summer” is a remarkable poem, conventional in its allusions (“Philomel” is the nightingale, and “Cancer” early summer’s zodiac sign) but unconventional in its tension between idealised praise of nature and a sense of simmering unease, “the snare/ which lurks beneath the smiling scene”. Tristram Fane Saunders

ON SUMMER

Esteville begins to burn;

The auburn fields of harvest rise; The torrid flames again return, And thunders roll along the skies.

Perspiring Cancer lifts his head, And roars terrific from on high; Whose voice the timid creatures

dread;

From which they strive with awe to

fly.

The night-hawk ventures from his

cell,

And starts his note in evening air; He feels the heat his bosom swell, Which drives away the gloom of fear.

Thou noisy insect, start thy drum; Rise lamp-like bugs to light the train; And bid sweet Philomela come,

And sound in front the nightly

strain.

The bee begins her ceaseless hum, And doth with sweet exertions rise; And with delight she stores her

comb,

And well her rising stock supplies.

Let sportive children well beware, While sprightly frisking o’er the

green;

And carefully avoid the snare, Which lurks beneath the smiling

scene.

The mistress bird assumes her nest, And broods in silence on the tree, Her note to cease, her wings at rest, She patient waits her young to see.

The farmer hastens from the heat; The weary plough-horse droops his

head;

The cattle all at noon retreat,

And ruminate beneath the shade.

The burdened ox with dauntless

rage,

Flies heedless to the liquid flood, From which he quaffs, devoid of

gauge,

Regardless of his driver’s rod.

Pomaceous orchards now expand Their laden branches o’er the lea; And with their bounty fill the land, While plenty smiles on every tree.

On fertile borders, near the stream, Now gaze with pleasure and delight; See loaded vines with melons teem – ‘Tis paradise to human sight.

With rapture view the smiling fields, Adorn the mountain and the plain, Each, on the eve of Autumn, yields A large supply of golden grain.