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A Poetry Thread (George Moses Horton)

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Prayer

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—

Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.

---- from Geetanjali (Rabindranath Tagore)​
 
hedge said:
This is not poetry (and not even that good, really), but for some reason I just took this. I thought we had a “pictures you’ve taken” thread, but I guess not…

IMG_5261.jpeg
Click to expand...
Search ‘Photos’ in thread title.
 
"Man it’s a hot one
Like seven inches from the midday sun..."
~ Rob Thomas and Itaal Shur

"As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse."
~ Will Shakespeare

"Out for those small town hot summer nights
Radio 'bout to blow
Top-down under the lights
Feel the heat, wild and sweet"
~ Michael Jay, Alan Roy Scott, and Roy Freeland
 

Recuerdo​

BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
 
Kore
Robert Creeley - 1926-2005

As I was walking
I came upon
chance walking
the same road upon.

As I sat down
by chance to move
later
if and as I might,

light the wood was,
light and green,
and what I saw
before I had not seen.

It was a lady
accompanied
by goat men
leading her.

Her hair held earth.
Her eyes were dark.
A double flute
made her move.

"O love,
where are you
leading
me now?"
 

The Graduate Leaving College​

BY GEORGE MOSES HORTON
SHARE
What summons do I hear?
The morning peal, departure’s knell;
My eyes let fall a friendly tear,
And bid this place farewell.

Attending servants come,
The carriage wheels like thunders roar,
To bear the pensive seniors home,
Here to be seen no more.

Pass one more transient night,
The morning sweeps the college clean;
The graduate takes his last long flight,
No more in college seen.

The bee, which courts the flower,
Must with some pain itself employ,
And then fly, at the day’s last hour,
Home to its hive with joy.
 
Here's one close to Tar Heel hearts...

“Bewailing mid the ruthless wave-I lift my feeble hand to thee-Let me no longer be a slave,-But drop the fetters and be free.
-Why will regardless Fortune sleep-Deaf to my penitential prayer-Or leave the struggling bard to weep-Alas, and languish in despair?
-He is an eagle void of wings,-Aspiring to the mountain’s height,-Yet in the vale aloud he sings-For pity’s aid to give him flight.
-Then listen all who never felt-For fettered genius heretofore,-Let hearts of petrification melt,-And bid the gifted Negro soar.”
— ‘Poet’s Petition,’ by George Moses Horton

Attribution: Martha McMakin. “N.C.’s First Negro Poet.” The Rocky Mount Telegram (Rocky Mount), March 20, 1966. Accessed July 2, 2023, https://www.newspapers.com/image/340717920/...

George Moses Horton was born, enslaved, in #NorthhamptonCounty in the early 1800s. His enslaver, James Horton, moved to #ChathamCounty around 1815 and soon after George Moses Horton began journeying to Chapel Hill on errands. There, after his mission was realized he paused often to recite, and eventually sell, poems that he had composed to #UNC students. Eventually he purchased his time, 50 cents daily paid to James Horton, and spent much of his day as a poet in Chapel Hill, composing poems on demand for his clientele, the students and other Chapel Hillians.

The Words of George Moses Horton of #ChathamCounty - enslaved - speak for millions subjected to human bondage as a result of The Atlantic Slave Trade and The Legal Institution recognized from Day One in the Founding Documents of this Nation and then defended to the death from 1861 to 1865 by citizens determined to preserve it. Horton experienced 19 years of Freedom beginning with the Union victory over the southern Confederacy in 1865 until his death, likely in Philadelphia, in 1884.

#OTD (July 2) in 1829 the first book by an African American in The South was published in Raleigh. George Moses Horton was enslaved in Pittsboro yet authored ‘The Hope of Liberty,’ a collection of poems. UNC students and faculty noted his genius but sadly turned away from any requests for cooperation or help in his quest to gain his freedom. https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../the-sable-orator-and-poet...

In Recent Times: Horton was an inaugural inductee into the N.C. Literary Hall of Fame in 1996.
A dormitory was named in his honor @UNC in 2006. https://unchistory.web.unc.edu/bui.../horton-residence-hall/
 
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