History, despite its wrenching pain / Cannot be unlived, but if faced / With courage, need not be lived again.
Angelou read On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration on 20 January 1993. She was the first poet to read at an inauguration since Robert Frost in 1961.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear / I rise / Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear / I rise
Just like moons and like suns, / With the certainty of tides, / Just like hopes springing high, / Still I’ll rise.
You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players;
Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me –