The Negro Speaks
of Rivers
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older
than the flow of human blood in human veins
My soul has grown deep like
the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when
Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans,
and I've seen its muddy bosom
turn all golden in the sunset
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like
the rivers.
-By Langston Hughes
