Sunday, April 2, 2023

April Is National Poetry Month


Composed while on a train crossing the Mississippi.

This poem was first published in The Crisis Magazine in June 1921.


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. 

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