The little black boy

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 recieve

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 ntent 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.