I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
- 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.
I know now
That Notre Dame is in Paris,
And the Seine is more to me now
Than a wriggling line on a map
Or a name in travel stories.
I know now
There is a Crystal Palace in Antwerp
Where a hundred women sell their naked bodies,
And the night-lovers of sailors
Wait for men on docks in Genoa.
I know now
That a great golden moon
Like a picture-book moon
Really rises behind palm groves
In Africa,
And tom-toms do beat
In village squares under the mango trees.
I know now
That Venice is a church dome
And a net-work of canals,
Tangiers a whiteness under sun.
I thought
It was Tangiers I wanted,
Or the gargoyles of Notre Dame,
Or the Crystal Palace in Antwerp,
Or the golden palm-grove moon in Africa,
Or a church dome and a net-work of canals.
Happiness lives nowhere,
Some old fool said,
If not within oneself.
It's a sure thing
Notre Dame is in Paris,
But I thought it was Tangiers I wanted.
