My mother bore me in the southern wild, <br /> And I am black, but oh my soul is white! <br /> White as an angel is the English child, <br /> But I am black, as if bereaved of light. <br /> <br /> My mother taught me underneath a tree, <br /> And, sitting down before the heat of day, <br /> She took me on her lap and kissed me, <br /> And, pointed to the east, began to say: <br /> <br /> 'Look on the rising sun: there God does live, <br /> And gives His light, and gives His heat away, <br /> And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive <br /> Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday. <br /> <br /> 'And we are put on earth a little space, <br /> That we may learn to bear the beams of love <br /> And these black bodies and this sunburnt face <br /> Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. <br /> <br /> 'For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear, <br /> The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice, <br /> Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and care <br /> And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice',' <br /> <br /> Thus did my mother say, and kissed me; <br /> And thus I say to little English boy. <br /> When I from black and he from white cloud free, <br /> And round the tent of God like lambs we joy <br /> <br /> I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear <br /> To lean in joy upon our Father's knee; <br /> And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, <br /> And be like him, and he will then love me.<br /><br />William Blake<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-little-black-boy-2/
