Still I Rise
- You may write me down in history
- With your bitter, twisted lies,
- You may tread me in the very dirt
-
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
- Does my sassiness upset you?
- Why are you beset with gloom?
- ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
-
Pumping in my living room.
- Just like moons and like suns,
- With the certainty of tides,
- Just like hopes springing high,
-
Still I’ll rise.
- Did you want to see me broken?
- Bowed head and lowered eyes?
- Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
-
Weakened by my soulful cries.
- Does my haughtiness offend you?
- Don’t you take it awful hard
- ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
-
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
- You may shoot me with your words,
- You may cut me with your eyes,
- You may kill me with your hatefulness,
-
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
- Does my sexiness upset you?
- Does it come as a surprise
- That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
-
At the meeting of my thighs?
- Out of the huts of history’s shame
- I rise
- Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
- I rise
- I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
- Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
- Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
- I rise
- Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
- I rise
- Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
- I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
- I rise
- I rise
- I rise.