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.

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1553Recorded in 1955 - Langston Hughes recites.