Monday, December 7, 2009

I've known rivers

clipped from en.wikipedia.org
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers", appeared in his [Langston Hughes] first book of poetry The Weary Blues in 1926:


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 danced in the Nile when I was old
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.




Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues, 1926

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