Thanks, Annie

To quote (almost, there may be some alterations) Angela Martin from "The Office":

"I have a nice comforter, a few cozy pillows, I usually read a chapter of a book by Anne Lamott and it's lights out by 12:00. THAT'S HOW I SLEEP AT NIGHT."

But as I was reading through one Annie's essays in "Traveling Mercies" the other night, I happened upon a reference to the following poem by William Blake. I feel compelled to share it in its entirety:

"The Little Black Boy," William Blake
from Songs of Innocence

My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but oh 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, pointed 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
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

"For when our souls have learn'd 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.