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?

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.

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.

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.

I been scarred and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me,
Tried to stop me, but I still rise

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear, I rise
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise, I rise, I rise.

About the Poet 

Richard Bhatia is a Grade 11 student from Far Eastern Private School – Branch

He is a performing student and a recipient of various awards. Aside from English and Science, Technology is one of the subject that interest him the most.