The Little Black Boy by William Blake

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 kissed me,
…And, pointing to the East, began to say:

“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 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 learned 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 golden tent like lambs rejoice.'”

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,

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.

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Links to analysis:

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/blake/section4.rhtml

http://www.gradesaver.com/songs-of-innocence-and-of-experience/study-guide/summary-the-little-black-boy

http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/william-blake/songs-innocence-and-experience/songs-innocence-little-black-boy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Black_Boy 

https://poemanalysis.com/the-little-black-boy-by-william-blake-poem-analysis/

 

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The Woodspurge by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walked on at the wind’s will, –
I saw now, for the wind was still.

Between my knees my forehead was, –
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.

My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon;
Among those few, out of the sun,
The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.

From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory:
One thing then learnt remains to me, –
The woodspurge has a cup of three.

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Analysis:
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dgr/healey5.html

http://matthewspoetryanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-woodspurge-dante-gabriel-rossetti.html

https://hokku.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/the-woodspurge-all-thought-exhausted/

https://igcseblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/04/the-woodspurge-by-daniel-gabriel-rossetti/

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When I Was Small by Emily Dickinson

When I was small, a Woman died –
Today – her Only Boy
Went up from the Potomac –
His face all Victory 

To look at her – How slowly
The Seasons must have turned
Till Bullets clipt an Angle
And He passed quickly round – 

If pride shall be in Paradise –
Ourself cannot decide –
Of their imperial Conduct –
No person testified – 

But, proud in Apparition –
That Woman and her Boy
Pass back and forth, before my Brain
As even in the sky – 

I’m confident that Bravoes –
Perpetual break abroad
For Braveries, remote as this
In Scarlet Maryland –

 

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Dickinson wrote of a mother who had died previously and left an only son who died in a battle on the Potomac River (stanza 1). To her, it must have seemed a long time before the bullet took his life (stanza 2).  Dickinson debated (stanza 3) whether it was right to have pride (which is sometimes sinful) in Paradise.  But as she considered, back and forth, the ghosts (Apparitions) of the two, she concluded that such bravoes (even there) for bravery in bloody (scarlet) Maryland were justified (stanza 4). The link below gives the specifics of a battle at Balls Bluff on the Potomac in October, 1861, as the time and place the “only boy” died.
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https://books.google.com/books?id=53x2cyrkm8oC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=scarlet+maryland+dickinson&source=bl&ots=vc5DhO3rMp&sig=ZaVvGauaxAIeo4FpM2jK5gttsog&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQ6tzG_KrKAhWGYyYKHRR5CsEQ6AEIKzAC#v=onepage&q=scarlet%20maryland%20dickinson&f=false

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