I want to see the slim palm-trees, Pulling at the clouds With little pointed fingers....
I want to see lithe Negro girls, Etched dark against the sky While sunset lingers.
I want to hear the silent sands, Singing to the moon Before the Sphinx-still face....
I want to hear the chanting Around a heathen fire Of a strange black race.
I want to breathe the Lotus flow'r, Sighing to the stars With tendrils drinking at the Nile....
I want to feel the surging Of my sad people's soul Hidden by a minsrel-smile.
2. The Negro Speaks of Rivers
-- by Langston Hughes （1920）
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.
