The Negro Speaks of Rivers I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

As deep as 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 Beneath the flood parallels of my soul.

The Negro speaks of rivers. All the great rivers. And it is not rivers I know. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

• Langston Hughes