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.
