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 …
Blake published ‘The Little Black Boy’ in 1789 and the poem can be seen in part as an indictment of slavery. Blake’s poem gives a voice to a black boy born into slavery, whose skin is black but, he maintains, his soul is white. ‘White’ here suggests purity and innocence, that central theme in Blake’s poems of 1789.
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 …
Blake published ‘The Little Black Boy’ in 1789 and the poem can be seen in part as an indictment of slavery. Blake’s poem gives a voice to a black boy born into slavery, whose skin is black but, he maintains, his soul is white. ‘White’ here suggests purity and innocence, that central theme in Blake’s poems of 1789.