DEVOTIONAL SONG FOR A NEGRO CHILD. Joanna Baillie Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Baillie, Joanna, 1762-1851. Fugitive Verses. By Joanna Baillie, author of “Dramas on the Passions,“ etc. London Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXL. 1840 pp. 205-206.

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DEVOTIONAL SONG FOR A NEGRO CHILD . WHEN at rising morn we lave Our dark limbs in the shiny wave , When beneath the palm-tree shade , We rest awhile in freshness laid , And , when our early task is done , Whom should we love to think upon ? When we noonday slumber take , In grassy glade or bowery brake , Where humming birds come glancing by , And stingless snakes untwisted lie , And quietly sounds the beetle's drone , Whom should we love to think upon ? When , all awake , we shout and sing , And dance and gambol in a ring , Or , healthful hunger to relieve , Our stated wholesome meals receive , — When this is past and day is done , Whom should we love to think upon ? On God the giver of all good , Who gives us life , and rest , and food , And cheerful pastime , late and early , And parents kind who love us dearly ; — God hath our hearts with goodness won , Him will we love to think upon .