A young boy born in the “southern wild” speaks about a world split into black and white. Though his body is dark, his mother assures him it is only a cloud, a temporary covering that will vanish when his soul learns to bear God’s blazing love. She taught him by pointing to the rising sun, where God lives and pours out warmth on everyone alike. The boy’s voice carries a quiet, trusting ache as he turns to an English child, imagining a moment after death when both are free of their separate clouds and can play like lambs around God’s tent. What haunts the poem is his tenderness: he vows to shade the white child from the overwhelming heat until that child, too, can lean joyfully on their Father’s knee. A deep yearning for equality and love shimmers through every line, making the poem feel both innocent and devastatingly gentle.
The Little Black Boy — Summary
My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but oh 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 kissed me, And, pointed 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',"
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
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.