Poem by Robert William Service

My Madonna

I haled me a woman from the street,
   Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model’s seat
   And I painted her sitting there.

I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
   I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
   If the Worst had been the Best.

She laughed at my picture and went away.
   Then came, with a knowing nod,
A connoisseur, and I heard him say;
   “’Tis Mary, the Mother of God.”

So I painted a halo round her hair,
   And I sold her and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire,
   Where you and all may see.

1. Resolutions
2. No More Music
3. Old Sweethearts
4. The Nostomaniac
5. Prelude (In youth I gnawed life's bitter rind)

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