The Negro Speaks of Rivers – Langston Hughes

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. 5

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. 10

From the Dark Tower – Countee Cullen

We shall not always plant while others reap

The golden increment of bursting fruit,

Not always countenance, abject and mute,

That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;

Not everlastingly while other sleep 5

Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,

Not always bend to some more subtle brute;

We were not made eternally to weep.

The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,

White stars is no less lovely being dark, 10

And there are buds that cannot bloom at all

In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall;

So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,

And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.