The Negro Speaks of Rivers
POEM VIEWS: 5089
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is the poet laureate of African-American experience — a popular writer of the Harlem Renaissance who gave hopeful . . . MORE »
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is the poet laureate of African-American experience — a popular writer of the Harlem Renaissance who gave hopeful . . . MORE »
By Langston Hughes
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.
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes. Reprinted with the permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.