Rise

Everyone in the world has gone to bed
 One night or another with fear, pain, or loss, or dissappointment
 Yet each of us has awakened and risen
 Somehow made our absolutions,
 "Good morning how are you?"
 "Fine thanks and you?"
 It's amazing whatever that abides in the human being
 There is a nobleness in the human being
 Hispanic, black and white, asian, native a
 You may write me down in history
 With your bitter, twisted lies,
 You may trod me in the very dirt
 But still, like dust, I'll rise.
 Does my sassiness upset you?
 Why are you beset with gloom?
 Just 'Cause I walk like as if I've got oil wells
 Pumping in my living room.
 Just like suns and like moons,
 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 so hard
 'Cause I laugh as if I've got gold mines
 Diggin' in my own backyard.
 You may shoot me with your words,
 You may cut me with your lies,
 You may kill me with your hatefulness,
 But still, like life, I'll rise.
 Does my sexiness offend you?
 Does it come as a surprise
 That I dance
 As if I have 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 miraculously clear
 I rise
 Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
 I am the hope and the dream of the slave.
 And so, naturally, there I go rising.