The Little Black Boy

Summary and Analysis

A black boy compares himself to a white English boy, and at first finds himself wanting. He
claims his soul is as white as the English boy’s, but also sees himself as “black as if bereav’d of
light.” He then remembers that his loving mother taught him that his black skin is a result of
constant exposure to the sun. The mother explains the sun as God’s gift to mankind, sharing
both His light and his heat, both of which are forms of His love. His color, she explains, is a
temporary “cloud” to be borne until he can fully learn to dwell in the presence of God’s love. The
speaker ends by saying he will tell the English boy this truth and look forward to the day when
both of them have put off this cloud and can love one another truly.

"The Little Black Boy" consists of seven heroic stanzas, which are quatrains following the ABAB
rhyme scheme. The first two stanzas describe the boy's mother and the influence she has had
on his life. The third, fourth, and fifth stanzas recall the mother's exact words in her lessons to
her son. The final two stanzas describe how the black boy communicates his lesson to the white
English boy for whom he has a great affection. Stanzas one and two describe the past; stanzas
three, four, and five recall the mother's words as if they were being spoken in the present; the
sixth and seventh stanzas include the black boy's words, which he “will say” to the English boy
in the future. Thus, the poem itself progresses in time from a past (learning), to the present (the
lesson itself) and to the future (the implementation or practical outworking of the lesson).

Hints of anti-slavery sentiment and an opposition to racism occur in this poem, but they are not
the main message. The equality of human beings is, however, emphasized by the poem in its
depiction of God creating the world as an act of divine mercy, giving the sun to shine upon and
warm all people everywhere as a preparation for the light and heat of His love. The black boy at
first sees his blackness negatively, since he seems to be at odds with his own soul, while the
English boy is white on both the inside and the outside. The boy’s mother sets him straight,
however; the outward appearance is but “a cloud” to dim the sun’s light and heat until each
person is ready to endure it directly.

The black boy accepts this explanation, and even envisions himself as having come through the
world’s testing stronger than the white English boy; he strokes the boy’s hair as a mother would
her child. While the two boys will one day be equal in love, the poem suggests that the black
boy’s trials in this life will result in his being spiritually superior to the untried white boy.

No matter their relative positions in this life or the next, the theme of equality of men before God
is strongly prevalent in this poem. The black boy and his mother have voices whereas the white
English boy is silent, and both black and white will one day be recognized as pure souls before
God. This concept of a future society, usually a heavenly one, in which inequities are resolved is
a recurring one in Blake's Songs of Innocence, most notably in the later “The Chimney
Sweeper.” In this instance, Blake is not criticizing a mentality that offers platitudes to control the
oppressed. Instead, he claims that the very life the boy leads is part of his future perfection.

The Little Black Boy was included in Songs of Innocence in 1789 and was published during a
time when slavery was still legal and the campaign for the abolotion of slavery was still young. It
was written around the time the Mission was established by the Methodist Society were first
founded in 1787 and the trend of religious thought was turning toward preaching the Christian
gospel to the blacks. This does not have a contrasting poem unlike others such as The Tyger.

William Blake was the most remarkable poet among the precursors of the Romantic Revival in
English. The Little Black Boy is an 18th-century poem from his collection Songs of Innocence
and Experience, in which a Black child attempts to figure out his place in this world and the next,
that is, in the spiritual afterlife. The poem is considered to be one of the most uncomfortable of
Blake’s poems because it deals with the issues of racism and slavery. The black race suffers to
teach the white world wisdom, but the black child deplores his colour since it seems to prevent
the world from realizing his purity of soul. The poem says that race will cease to matter when
the speaker is united with God in the afterlife and thus argues that divine love transcends race
and that all races are equal in the eyes of God.

Blake’s humanism is evident in this poem. In an age when black people were treated worse
than animals, he makes a black woman and child the guardians of selfless giving which is the
essence of true Christianity. While this poem emphasizes the philosophy of Christ, there is yet
ambivalence. While in the English countryside, every child has the birthright of divine love, the
little black boy has to strive to be worthy of acceptance. The black child has to cast off his
coloured skin to find friendship with the white child.

The speaker starts by talking about his upbringing “in the southern wild,” an allusion to Africa.
The boy himself states that though he “bereav’d of light” his “soul is white.” Blake here is playing
into the idea of white and black as symbolic concepts, with whiteness or light that is, an absence
of darkness being associated with goodness, purity, and love. The speaker here is stating a
claim to these positive attributes, and the poem is insisting that he, too, is worthy of God’s love.

The speaker then recounts how his mother taught him to associate God with the sun, and that
the purpose of earthly life is to “learn to bear the beams of love.” In other words, the sun’s rays
are the rays of God’s love, and the speaker “bears” more of these beams than the white “little
English boy”. The speaker’s “sun-burnt” skin thus becomes a mark of his closeness to God
rather than a source of shame. In reality, having dark skin has nothing to do with being “sun-
burnt”; Blake is trying to make a point with his imagery here, rather than a scientific argument
about skin colour.
The mother’s story concludes with the idea that identity is only temporary -blackness or
whiteness is just “clouds” that people wear during earthly life. Racial differences disappear in
heaven, where the two boys will finally become free and equal, and “like lambs rejoice”. The
speaker restates this idea and suggests that in heaven he will provide shade to the “little English
boy”.

Blake intends this as a vision of equality and joyful communion, but note that this is at odds with
how the speaker, even in heaven, “shades” the white boy. In a sense, the poem argues that the
speaker through his experience of God’s “beams of love” is better prepared, perhaps due to his
experience of suffering in life, for a spiritual relationship with God -and thus must help the white
boy when they both meet in the full brightness of God’s love. At the same time, this image
makes the speaker deferential to the white boy even in death.

And, of course, readers never learn of the English boy’s response. In the end, the speaker might
be taken as presenting an innocent but ultimately naive perspective. As a child, the boy perhaps
hasn’t yet fully encountered the brutality of society’s racist evils, and so can still buy into hopeful
but unrealistic visions of the future.

Even as the poem ostensibly seeks compassion and equality, the poem itself embodies many of
the racist attitudes common in the 18th century with treating Africa as a “wild” or, uncivilized,
place is just one example. The speaker also seeks the approval of the English boy and remains
subservient to him even in the afterlife -meaning that race does not float away after death and
that the speaker remains subject to the prejudices he faced on earth even in heaven. Blake
might have been aware of this, and, again, was purposefully seeking to make an ironic
commentary on the young speaker’s naivety. Elsewhere in Blake’s work, he does indeed
condemn the promise of an idyllic afterlife as a means to excuse earthly mistreatment.

The poem presents a vision of the Christian afterlife and argues that people’s identities on Earth
are only temporary. Here, as in other Blake poems, an idealized vision of the afterlife explains
and informs the meaning of earthly existence -that to be alive is, in effect, to be passing through
the earthly world, and that before too long people will be reunited with a fundamentally loving
and kind God. The poem is a poem of transition, a poem of doubt in the heart of the poet as he
explores prejudices and racial issues. It is also a poem which gives the reader an insight into
how Blake saw the world.

Interpretation and Analysis

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:

The speaker is described as a black person who was born in the ‘southern wild‘, which would
refer to Africa. ‘Wild‘ is used here because the blacks were considered as savages and wild.
However, the speaker expresses that his soul is pure with pride because it is ‘white‘. An English
child is seen as pure and superior, holy like an angel; the speaker is seen as dirty and
corrupted, as if ‘bereav’d of light‘, where light is used as an allusion to God’s love. This infers
that perhaps a black child is not loved by God or that the child or his kind were a mistake.

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:

The stanza pictures the close and loving relationship the speaker had with his mother. It is
implied that they both lived in a rural area, where schools or formal education was lacking. This
serves as the beginning of the mother’s lesson or advice, which stretches out along the next
three stanzas. The phrase ‘before the heat of day‘ could imply that the lessons given were
under the guidance of God’s love, where His light and heat warm the two beings.

“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 the morning, joy in the noon day

The phrase ‘pointing to the east‘ from the previous stanza is cleared up here, where the mother
is directing the speaker’s attention towards the sun, where a metaphor is used. The sun is used
to represent God, who constantly loves His creations and showers them with care, sacrificing
His time and effort for His children. His generosity is stressed here where ‘flowers and trees and
beasts and men receive‘ his undying love, represented by ‘comfort in the morning, joy in the
noon day‘. The rays of sunlight is seen as warmth in the morning, when all beasts are
awakened and welcomed by it; sunshine and heat leads to joy at noon, perhaps because it does
not hamper a child’s play, an animal’s hunt or nature’s growth. God is fair to all and would love
all His creations equally, regardless of their differences.

“And we are put on earth a little space;

And these black bodies and this sun-burned face

Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

The mother is stating that their kind – the blacks – were born and placed on a little space on
earth to learn to ‘bear the beams of love‘, a symbol of God’s undying love as represented by the
sun. She continues by stating that their ‘black bodies‘ and ‘sun-burned face‘ is just a mask and
is temporary like a passing cloud. These two physical features imply their closeness to God, as
only those close to God (sun) are the only ones who would absorb all His love (absorb the rays
of sunlight, causing skin to darken).

“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 tent like lambs rejoice.”

When people have learned to bear the ‘heat‘ (suffering, obstacles etc.), the cloud – that is their
mask (race or skin color) – will vanish and all of His creations will hear God’s voice, asking His
‘love & care‘ to ‘come out from the grove‘, to put aside their differences and come together and
rejoice in His realm like lambs. ‘Lambs‘ is used as a symbol that humans are God’s children,
just as Jesus Christ was His son and the Lamb of God.

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,

The mother’s message is concluded and the speaker speaks to the young English boy after the
lesson. When both the speaker and the English boy leave their physical form behind (‘When I
from black and he from white cloud free,‘), they will both be able to rejoice in God’s realm like
‘lambs‘, pure and free from human toil.

I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear

To lean in joy upon our father’s knee;

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

Even in the afterlife, the speaker is still submissive to the white English boy, protecting him from
suffering until he is able to bear it and join the speaker in God’s embrace or love. And when the
speaker has proven that he is as loving as the English child, they will both become equal in
God’s realm and unconditional love can be achieved.

Theme of Racial Equality

18th century racism in England was widespread when the slave trade flourished. By the mid
18th century, London had the largest black population in Britain, made up of free and enslaved
people as well as many runaways. As many were often discriminated by London society,
Blake’s setting of a black child seeking his place in this society is very apt.

The poem starts with an immediate instance of stereotypes towards blacks, whereby they are
born in the ‘southern wild‘ – Africa, which is depicted to be savage and uncivilized. The speaker
also holds white people in high regard, where white people were seen as divine like an angel,
whereas the speaker was black and ‘bereav’d of light‘. This plays into the analogy that blacks
were impure, savages or unworthy of God’s love. Hence, the speaker is seen as desperate for
God’s love and is torn about his identity, wishing to be equal to a white child by claiming that his
‘soul is white‘ – pure, holy and cleansed of sin, a preconception that is untrue.

The speaker then recounts his mother’s feelings, where she had given him religious guidance.
God had been associated with the sun, which gives off warm sunlight, then depicted as beams
of love. It is through this that Blake implies that blacks with their ‘black bodies‘ and ‘sun-burned
face‘ were closer to God, as these features were seen as proof of bearing His love. Thus, it is
seen as a mark of pride rather than shame, as white Englishmen often denote them as. Blake
also implies that these races, colors, physical features etc. are just a mask by including them in
the mother’s teachings. It is said that when they have passed on, ‘the cloud will vanish‘ and
everyone is able to rejoice together around God’s tent. Blake intends this as an image of
equality and joyful communion, where racial differences dissipate and both the speaker and the
‘little English boy‘ are able to love each other equally. However, this notion is at odds with the
speaker’s own practice in heaven, where the speaker still seeks the boy’s approval and love by
shading him. It would seem that even in the afterlife, the speaker is still submissive to the
English child and the image of racial difference never truly dissipates in death.

A combination of religious elements and the known background of this poem demonstrates the
Church’s hypocrisy in the past as vehemently criticized by Blake. While the Christian gospel
was preached to the blacks, racism still ravaged their society and this was deemed as Blake as
against the teachings of the Bible although he himself was not religious. While the religion
preaches love and equality to all, blacks were still treated inhumanely and this was clear
evidence of their double standards.

Literary Elements

1. Allusion

‘southern wild‘ – reference to Africa. Stereotyping Africa and it’s inhabitants as savage or
uncivilized, portraying how highly the Caucasians (Englishmen) regarded themselves.

‘tent of God‘ – known as the “tabernacle” based on the Hebrew Bible. Was meant to be a sacred
tent of meeting, where priests would tend to a lampstand, symbolizing the light of God. The
design also served as inspiration for construction of churches to symbolize the tent of God with
men. As it was God’s earthly dwelling, it is hence suitable as His children’s place of gathering
and a place to rejoice where they can love each other in God’s light.

lambs – a recurring character in Blake’s works. Symbolizes the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. A
figure of purity, free from human burdens

2. Juxtaposition – black and white, first stanza

3. Metaphor – cloud as a mask

4. Simile – ‘like’

5. Paradox – the whole poem can be considered as a paradox because while Blake
justifies their existence and campaigns for their rights here, the speaker still reverts to
his biased behavior which treats the white English boy as a level higher, flipping the idea
on it’s head.

Conclusion

Blake as being ‘influenced by non-conformist religious sects … which compelled him to reject
slavery as an abject horror’. But in other work, such as ‘The Little Black Boy’ in his Songs of
Innocence collection (1789), Blake’s standpoint is difficult to accept. Such contradictions are
alluded to in the subtitle of his collections which refer to the poems as expressing ‘the two
contrary states of the human soul’.
The poem for this week’s extract, explicitly marks racialised religious symbolism onto the skin
and souls of children to explore the vulnerable position of the title’s narrator (a little black boy),
who is keenly aware of the conflation of black with evil and white with good. Binary oppositions
which were used to justify slavery and condemn black people are reinforced and embedded
throughout the poem.

Whilst Blake’s countrymen enslaved and transported African people, the poem speaks of the
child’s birthplace as the ‘southern wild’, alluding to Africa and its people as savage and
uncivilised. The antithetical second line: ‘And I am black, but O! my soul is white’, exposes his
black skin as ‘a cloud, and like a shady grove’ which shields the child’s ‘white’ soul. An
exclamatory caesura ‘O!’ expresses his sadness and the hardship of his earthly position existing
as a black boy. The ‘English child’, by contrast, is ‘White as an angel’. Radically, we never hear
the voice of the English boy, yet his innocent, pure, virtuous status is emphasised. Conversely,
the African boy is ‘bereav’d of light’. It appears that, in life, his black skin is associated with
death, loss and grief.

The early years of the narrator’s religious education taught him that ‘these black bodies and this
sun-burnt face’ is an earthly barrier until ‘our souls have learn’d the heat to bear’. Later in the
poem, he reassures the ‘little English boy’ that because of the worldly suffering he has endured
as a black boy on earth he is now equipped to ‘shade him from the heat’. The little white boy
has not been forced to endure any hardships; therefore, the little black boy offers to protect him
until he has learned ‘to lean in joy upon our father’s knee’.

In heaven, ‘When I from black and he from white cloud free’, the narrator acknowledges that
both little boys will be free of their earthly skin which has created a barrier. In death, moreover,
the little black boy notes that he will be loved by the white boy: ‘I’ll … be like him and he will then
love me’. This suggests that the English boy can only love what is like him – an indictment
indeed for a Christian child who should love neighbour and strangers alike – leaving us to
wonder if it is only in death (when the little black boy’s white soul is revealed) that he can ‘then’
be loved?

When exploring a writer’s work, it’s important to consider a range of poems rather than a single
piece, and to reckon with any problematic aspects we might find. There are important
conversations to be had when we truly confront a canon, examining it in its complexity and
asking how it has shaped the world we inhabit. This is why engaging with a poem like ‘The Little
Black Boy’ is relevant today.