Botticelli's Madonna in the Louvre

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An illustration for the story Botticelli's Madonna in the Louvre by the author Edith Wharton
Sandro Botticelli, Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist, 1470
An illustration for the story Botticelli's Madonna in the Louvre by the author Edith Wharton
Sandro Botticelli, Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist, 1470
An illustration for the story Botticelli's Madonna in the Louvre by the author Edith Wharton

WHAT strange presentiment, O Mother, lies
On thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips,
Forefeeling the Light's terrible eclipse
On Calvary, as if love made thee wise,
And thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes
The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps,
And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps
When the cross darkens her unclouded skies?

Sad Lady, if some mother, passing thee,
Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain,
And think -- "My child at home clings so to me,
With the same smile . . . and yet in vain, in vain,
Since even this Jesus died on Calvary" --
Say to her then: "He also rose again."


5.5

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