Original Art Story - African American Boys Portraits
The Little Black Boy BY WILLIAM BLAKE (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) 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 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 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.' " Th...