27 So may thy mother and thy nurse Sing lullaby, my little boy, I grieve that duty doth not work Sing lullaby, my little boy, Sing lullaby, mine only joy! Yet as I am, and as I may, Sing lullaby, my little boy, RICHARD Rowlands THE LITTLE BLACK BOY My mother bore me in the southern wild, My mother taught me underneath a tree, "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 "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 "For when our souls have learned the heat to bear, Thus did my mother say, and kissèd me; When I from black and he from white cloud free, I'll shade him from the heat, till he can bear |