Difference between revisions of "Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1921)"

Revision as of 20:55, 12 April 2007

Text

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.

Critical Edition

Langston Hughes. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers [1921]." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Vol. D. Fifth Edition. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 1521.

Further Reading

External Links