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 rivers
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.

Hughes' poem is a beautiful depiciton of the "negro artist" as described by himself in his essay on the racial mountain. Hughes in his essay encourages other black artists to interpret and depict the beauty of the black race. In this poem, the speaker posseses a wise, timeless voice, reflected by the age and continuation of rivers. Hughes is describing his people as beautiul in a timeless sense. With each river described, Hughes is tracing the lineage present in the history of the black race, beginning with Africa to the United States. Again, Hughes' sentiments of "I am a Negro--and beautiful" are echoed in the muddy waters described and the pyramids lookin gout over the Nile. Though he does not come out and explicitely state this, the images are romanticised and almost a bit trivial.
Hughes'soul has grown deep, but does he truly know his soul? He has known rivers and these rivers he has either never seen or simply heard of as the speaker could not have lived on all the rivers listed. The speaker knows the Mississippi as it is probably most familiar to him (or her), but still the speaker knows rivers...but his sould remains deep like the river. A river always shifts, flows and darkens when the snow melts or it rains. The speaker knows this about river, yet the soul remains deep and buried.
This idea of representing and uncovering the "negro" soul is what Hughes desires of all "negro artists" and is eveident through his attempts as depicted above.