The poem “Death of an Old Carriage Horse,” poet George Moses Horton reflects on the miserable, unfortunate life of an overworked and unacknowledged carriage horse, told to keep “push along”. The entire poem reads like one long metaphor, with extensive meaning, an enchanting tone, and repetition about Horton’s life as a slave and many other slaves who felt this way. George Moses Horton was born in Northampton County, North Carolina, around 1797. Born into slavery, Horton taught himself how to read and write with the help of people along the way and even made a some money selling his love poems to university students. In 1829, Horton's poetry was published in a Massachusetts newspaper, the Lancaster Gazette. In the same year, Horton became