"My soul has grown deep like the rivers."
— Hughes, Langston (1902-1967))
Work Title
Date
1922
Metaphor
"My soul has grown deep like the rivers."
Metaphor in Context
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.
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.
Categories
Provenance
Reading. Text and Audio Clip at Poetry.org: <http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15722>
Citation
Hughes, Langston. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994.
Date of Entry
06/26/2007
Date of Review
06/26/2007
