I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

Identify the allusion. Then identify the effect of that allusion.

A. the speaker alludes to rivers from his childhood; the effect is that the rivers are part of the collective

B. the speaker alludes to rivers from his childhood; the effect is that the reader understands that the rivers were created by African Americans

C. the speaker alludes to rivers as old as civilization itself; the reader recognizes that the poet is intelligent

D. the speaker alludes to rivers as old as civilization itself; the poet shows how the survival of his people is like the long life of the rivers