The Little Black Boy

5My mother taught me underneath a tree,

6 And, sitting down before the heat of day,

7She took me on her lap and kissed me,

8 And, pointed to the east, began to say:

9"Look on the rising sun: there God does live,

10 And gives His light, and gives His heat away,

11And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive

12 Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

13"And we are put on earth a little space,

14 That we may learn to bear the beams of love

15And these black bodies and this sunburnt face

16 Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

17"For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,

18 The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,

19Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and care

20 And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice',"

21Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;

22And thus I say to little English boy.

23When I from black and he from white cloud free,

24And round the tent of God like lambs we joy

25I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear

26To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;

27And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,

28And be like him, and he will then love me.