Monday, February 17, 2014

RIVERS

Poem for Today - February 17, 2014
Continuing Black History Month


THE NEGRO SPEAKS  OF RIVERS 


I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the worId
and oIder than the flow of
       human bIood 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.

                                      - Langston Hughes  ©


The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by by Langston Hughes: Copyright 1926 by Alred A. Knopf. Inc., and renewed 1954 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted from Selected Poems by Langston Hughes, by permission of the publisher.

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