THE LITTLE BLACK BOY

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 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 kissèd me,

And, pointing to the East, began to say:

"Look at 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 Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

"For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,

The cloud will vanish, when 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 kissèd 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. William Blake

MY BIRD

(Lines written at Burmah in joy for a first-born)

ERE last year's morn had left the sky,
A birdling sought my Indian nest;
And folded, oh, so lovingly,

Her tiny wings upon my breast.

From morn till evening's purple tinge,
In winsome helplessness she lies;
Two rosy leaves with a silken fringe,
Shut softly on her starry eyes.

There's not in Ind a lovelier bird;
Broad earth owns not a happier nest;
O God, thou hast a fountain stirred,
Whose waters never more shall rest.

This beautiful, mysterious thing,
This seeming visitant from heaven,
This bird with the immortal wing,
To me, to me, thy hand has given.

The pulse first caught its tiny stroke,
The blood its crimson hue, from mine;
This life which I have dared invoke,
Henceforth, is parallel with thine.

A silent awe is in my room,

I tremble with delicious fear;
The future, with its light and gloom,
Time and eternity are here.

Doubts, hopes, in eager tumult rise,

Hear, O my God, one earnest prayer: Room for my bird in Paradise,

And give her angel-plumage there.

Emily C. Judson

CHILDREN

CHILDREN are what the mothers are.

No fondest father's fondest care

Can fashion so the infant heart
As those creative beams that dart,
With all their hopes and fears, upon
The cradle of a sleeping son.

His startled eyes with wonder see
A father near him on his knee,
Who wishes all the while to trace
The mother in his future face;
But 't is to her alone uprise

His waking arms; to her those eyes

Open with joy and not surprise.

Walter Savage Landor

MY LITTLE DEAR

My little dear, so fast asleep,

Whose arms about me cling, What kisses shall she have to keep,

While she is slumbering?

Upon her golden baby-hair,

The golden dreams I'll kiss

Which Life spread through my morning fair,

And I have saved, for this.

Upon her baby eyes I'll press

The kiss Love gave to me, When his great joy and loveliness Made all things fair to see.

And on her lips, with smiles astir,
Ah me, what prayer of old

May now be kissed to comfort her,
Should Love or Life grow cold.

Dollie Radford

THE IMMORTALITY OF LOVE

THEY sin who tell us love can die:
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity;
In heaven ambition cannot dwell,
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell;
Earthly these passions of the earth,
They perish where they have their
birth;

But love is indestructible;

Its holy flame for ever burneth,

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.

Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times op-
press'd,

It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of love is there.
Oh! when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,