And we are put on earth a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love

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Songs of Innocence by William BlakeThe Little Black Boy
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The Little Black Boy is a poem by William Blake published in Songs of Innocence in 1789. It details, in first person, a scene where a young African boy's mother tells him of God and his views of people, including English children. It also contains the idea that once they die, God will call out to them as equals and they will be the same in His eyes.
— Excerpted from The Little Black Boy on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Blakes' first plate of The Little Black Boy

Blakes' second plate of The Little Black Boy
My mother bore me in the southern wild,And I am black, but O! my soul is whiteWhite as an angel is the English child:But I am black as if bereav'd of light.My mother taught me underneath a treeAnd sitting down before the heat of dayShe took me on her lap and kissed me,And pointing to the east began to say:Look on the rising sun: there God does liveAnd gives his light, and gives his heat awayAnd flowers and trees and beasts and men recieveComfort in morning joy in the noonday.And we are put on earth a little spaceThat we may learn to bear the beams of love.And these black bodies and this sunburnt faceIs but a cloud, and like a shady grove,For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bearThe cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice,Saying: come out from the grove my love & careAnd 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 tent of God like lambs we joy:Ill shade him from the heat till he can bearTo lean in joy upon our fathers knee.And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,And be like him and he will then love me.

This work is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Little_Black_Boy"
Categories: Poems PD-old
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