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.

5 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 on the rising sun: there God does live,

10 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;

15 And these black bodies and this sunburnt face

Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

"For, when our souls have learned the heat to bear,

The cloud will vanish, we shall hear
His voice,

Why fade these children of the Spring, born but to smile and fall?

Ah! Thel is like a watery bow, and like a parting cloud,

Like a reflection in a glass, like shadows in the water,

10 Like dreams of infants, like a smile upon an infant's face,

Like the dove's voice, like transient day, like music in the air.

Ah! gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head,

And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gentle hear the voice

Of Him that walketh in the garden in the evening time!""

15 The Lily of the Valley, breathing in the humble grass,

Answered the lovely maid, and said: “I am a watery weed,

And I am very small, and love to dwell in lowly vales:

So weak, the gilded butterfly scarce perches on my head.

Yet I am visited from heaven; and He that smiles on all,

Walks in the valley, and each morn over me spreads His hand,

20 Saying, 'Rejoice, thou humble grass, thou new-born lily-flower,

Thou gentle maid of silent valleys and of modest brooks;

For thou shalt be clothed in light and fed with morning manna,

Till summer's heat melts thee beside the fountains and the springs,

To flourish in eternal vales.' Then why should Thel complain?

25 Why should the mistress of the vales of Har utter a sigh?"

She ceased, and smiled in tears, then sat down in her silver shrine.