And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;
Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.
-James Weldon Johnson.
THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS
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.
-Langston Hughes.
