Laurel · William Blake · Poems of William Blake

The Little Black Boy

William Blake (1757–1827) · 1783–1794

iambic pentameter · ABAB · 28 lines · from Poems of William Blake

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 receiveComfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

"And we are put on earth a little space,That we may learn to bear the beams of loveAnd 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 bear,The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and 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

I'll shade him from the heat till he can bearTo 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.

Words in this poem

noonday n.: Midday; twelve o'clock in the day; noon.
shall v. i.: To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

The Little Black Boy is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of William Blake, Project Gutenberg ebook #574; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.

Cite as: William Blake, The Little Black Boy, in Poems of William Blake (1783–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #574, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-poems/the-little-black-boy.html, id L01985.

Form and metre

The Little Black Boy is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 5 of its 7 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.

See other poems in iambic pentameter.

Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.

Rhyme words, stanza by stanza

The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.

1 ABAB wild^A · white^B · child^A · light^B
2 ABAB tree^A · day^B · me^A · say^B
4 A-A- space^A · love · face^A · grove
5 ABAB bear^A · voice^B · care^A · rejoice^B
6 ABAB me^A · boy^B · free^A · joy^B
7 ABAB bear^A · knee^B · hair^A · me^B

Scansion, line by line

Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.

Line	Syl.	Stress
My mother bore me in the southern wild,	10	·/˘····/˘·
And I am black, but oh my soul is white!	10	··········
White as an angel is the English child,	10	···/˘··/˘·
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.	10	······˘/··
My mother taught me underneath a tree,	10	·/˘···˘/··
And, sitting down before the heat of day,	10	·/˘·······
She took me on her lap and kissed me,	10	········˘·
And, pointed to the east, began to say:	10	·/˘···˘/··
"Look on the rising sun: there God does live,	10	···/˘·····
And gives His light, and gives His heat away,	10	········˘/
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive	10	·/······˘/
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.	10	/˘·/˘···/˘
"And we are put on earth a little space,	10	·······/˘·
That we may learn to bear the beams of love	10	··········
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face	10	···/˘·····
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.	10	·······/˘·
"For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,	10	··/·······
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,	10	···/˘·····
Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and care	11	/˘·········
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice',"	10	···/˘···˘/
Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;	10	···/˘···˘·
And thus I say to little English boy.	10	·····/˘/˘·
When I from black and he from white cloud free,	10	··········
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy	10	··········
I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear	10	··········
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;	10	······//˘·
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,	10	·······/˘·
And be like him, and he will then love me.	10	··········

The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.

More by William Blake

Poems of William Blake Songs of Innocence and of Experience