I've Known Rivers

Song Cycle by Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947)

1. I've Known Rivers  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
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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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Confirmed with Mein dunklen Hände. Moderne Negerlyrik in Original und Nachdichtung, herausgegeben und übertragen von Eva Hesse und Paridam von dem Knesebeck, München: Nymphenburger Verlag, 1953, page 18.

Note: all indented lines were attached to the previous line in the original publication; the lines have been broken to fit on the screen.

First published in Crisis, June 1921.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 103