The Little
Black Boy
Blake (278)
My
mother bore me in the southern
wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is
white;
White as an angel is the English
child:
But I am black as if bereav'd of
light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree
And sitting down before the
heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And pointing to the east began to say.
Look on the rising sun: there God
does live
And gives his light, and gives his
heat away.
And flowers and trees and beasts
and
men receive
Comfort in morning joy in the noon
day.
And we are put on earth a
little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams
of love,
And these black bodies and
this sun-burnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a
shady
grove.
For when our souls have
learn'd the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish we shall
hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the
grove my love & care,
And round my golden tent like
lambs rejoice.
Thus did my mother say and kissed me,
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white
cloud free,
And round the tent of God like
lambs
we joy:
I'll shade
him from the heat
till he can bear,
To lean in joy upon our
fathers knee.
And then I'll stand and stroke
his silver hair,
And be like him and he will
then love me.