William Blake, Songs of Innocence: 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:
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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,
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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
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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
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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.
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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,
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And round the tent of God like lambs we joy:
To lean in joy upon our fathers knee.
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
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And be like him and he will then love me.