Explore "Madonna Mia" by Oscar Wilde on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A lily-girl, not made for this world's pain, / With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears, / And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears / Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:
Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain, / Red underlip drawn in for fear of love, / And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove, / Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.
Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease, / Even to kiss her feet I am not bold, / Being o'ershadowed by the wings of awe, / Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice / Beneath the flaming Lion's breast, and saw / The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.