  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 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 kissÉd 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, 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 Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove. "For when our souls have learned the heat to bear, The clouds will vanish; we shall hear his voice, Saving: 'Come from the grove, my love and care, And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.'" Thus did my mother say and kissÉd 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. William Blake. |
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