PRINT AS PDF

The October 11, 1862 edition of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper published a poem entitled “Summer.” Excerpts follow:

Flooded in sunny silence sleep the kine;
In languid murmurs brooklets float and flow;
The quaint far gables in the rich light shine,
And round them jasmined honeysuckles twine,
And close beside them sunflowers burn and blow…

Not far from New York City, one can still step back in time to summer scenes similar to those captured in words more than 150 years ago. Out on the North Fork of Long Island, amidst vineyards, one can visit farms on which, to quote 19th century Scottish poet and artist William Bell Scott, “the sunflowers rise aloft like beacon towers, their large discs fringed with flames…”

Some scenes follow: