My Version of "And Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

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 backyard?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise

Dirty, impoverished, enslaved and poor
Not even allowed to walk through the front door.
Not good enough to sleep in your bed
Turned up your nose at this nappy head.

You can have nothing, was their solemn cry
I'll take even less, I dared to reply.
I want nothing that I do not earn,
I could not enjoy it, now watch me and learn.

Fast forward to now and look at me,
Didn't you know this is what you would see?
Had you no eyes, no brain or no heart?
Had you no imagination to predict this part?

I'm a dark ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Adapted from "And Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou.