THE LITTLE BLACK BOY

THE LITTLE BLACK BOY



My mother bore me in the southern wild,

And I am
black, but oh my soul is white!

White as an angel is the English
child,

But I am black, as if bereaved 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, pointed 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 noonday.



"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 sunburnt 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
and 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 Father's knee;

And then I'll stand and stroke his silver
hair,

And be like him, and he will then love me.