View source for Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1921)

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

==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==
*Miller, W. Jason. "Justice, Lynching, and American Riverscapes: Finding Reassurance in Langston Hughes's 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers'." Langston Hughes Review, 18 (2004 Spring), pp. 24-37.
==External Links==
*[http://archive.salon.com/audio/poetry/2001/02/15/langston_hughes/index Listen to Langston Hughes read and comment on the poem] at Salon.com

[[Category:20th century|1921]]
[[Category:1920s|1921]]
[[Category:By author|Hughes, Langston]]