编者按:Maya Angelou是美国文坛最耀眼的黑人女作家和诗人,成名作是一部名为I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings的自传体小说。1993年她在美国总统Bill Clinton的就职仪式上特邀朗诵献诗On the Pulse of the Morning,从而成为美国历史上继Robert Frost之后的官方诗人。

Still I Rise是Maya Angelou的诗歌代表作,是继Martin Luther King的I Have a Dream之后美国黑人争取民权的又一纪念碑式的作品。

Still I Rise(我仍将奋起)

You may write me down in history

With your bitter,twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still,like dust,Ill rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset1 with gloom?

Cause I walk like Ive 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 Ill 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 haughtiness2 offend you?

Dont you take it awful hard

Cause I laugh like Ive got gold mines

Digginin my own backyard.

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,Ill rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like Ive got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs3?

Out of the huts of historys shame

I rise

Up from a past thats rooted in pain

I rise

Im a black ocean,leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling4 I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak thats wondrously5 clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise.