Notes of the poem "The Little Black Boy" by William Blake

Notes of the poem

 The Little Black Boy - William Blake

The Little Black Boy

By William Blake

                                          

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 sun-burnt 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 & 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: 

Ill shade him from the heat till he can bear, 

To 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.

The tree is the tree of life. The sun becomes the symbol of the God. The reference of the east in line 6 is the symbol of the gesture of the God. The nature of the God is to give. The use of "give" is similar to use of "gave" in the "Lamb". The lamb is a extended comment on the giving nature of God.
The mother points out the sun to the black boy. The two immense short four lines paragraph in which the mother tells the boy about the existence of human. The mother points out to the child that the boy should also understand the existence of God. The purpose of human existence is to understand the God, the love. The poem seems to suggests the human existence.

Burning is the symbolic representation of suffering. The mother says to boy that it is our nature to suffer as a human being but the suffering has a purpose.
Both of them suggest that if we projects our suffering then we have not to lose our innocence. The black boy should not lose his spontaneous innocence in the envy of white boy.
Earthly existence is the process of living in the heat of the Sun.
In the poem, the body is presented as a sheet which protects us from the heat of the Sun "God" - the colour of the skin is to protect more. The child also projects the racial discrimination " the colour of the skin".
In stanza 6, the little boy founds a new wisdom. The little black boy does not feel that he has made in such way that he can face the sun light more than the white boy. The colour of the skin is not the prefect because they have same father.
The poem chooses a same poignant note that it opens. He can't help but he admires silver hair and white body. All the little black boy wants - "a little love" which has no any condition. Wisdom can help the child, but it can't completely erase the plot of racial segregation from his mind. He is more stronger, wiser, capable than the white boy.