Botticelli's Madonna in the Louvre

by 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."