A lily-girl worshipped from afar
Madonna Mia
"A lily-girl, not made for this world's pain,"
Poem
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 tearsLike 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 BeatriceBeneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and sawThe seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.
In brief
SummaryThe speaker describes a girl of pale, untouched beauty: soft brown hair braided by her ears, eyes half veiled with tears, cheeks that love has never stained, a red lip 'drawn in for fear of love' and a white throat crossed by one purple vein. He will praise her without end, but he dares not even kiss her feet. He stands in awe of her as Dante stood beside Beatrice in Paradise, beneath the flaming constellation of the Lion, and saw the seventh heaven and the golden stair.
Key themes
"A lily-girl, not made for this world's pain,"
Summary
The title means 'My Lady'. The first eight lines are a portrait. She is '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'.
The portrait continues downward. Her 'Pale cheeks' bear no stain of love, her 'Red underlip' is 'drawn in for fear of love', and her throat, 'whiter than the silvered dove', is like 'wan marble' through which 'creeps one purple vein'.
The last six lines turn from her to the speaker. Though his lips 'shall praise her without cease', he is not bold enough 'Even to kiss her feet', being 'o'ershadowed by the wings of awe'. He compares himself to Dante standing with Beatrice 'Beneath the flaming Lion's breast', where he saw 'The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold'. The love he describes is worship at a distance, closer to a religious vision than to courtship.
Characters
The speaker
The awestruck admirer
A lover who praises the girl's beauty in loving detail but is too overwhelmed to approach her, 'o'ershadowed by the wings of awe'. He sees himself as Dante beside Beatrice, a worshipper in the presence of something heavenly.
The lily-girl
The untouched beloved
The 'Madonna' of the title, 'A lily-girl, not made for this world's pain', with brown braided hair, tear-veiled eyes, pale cheeks and a white throat. She seems afraid of love and untouched by it, and she never speaks or acts in the poem; she is only seen and praised.
Themes
Purity and the fear of love
The portrait lingers on signs of innocence: 'Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain', a lip 'drawn in for fear of love', a throat 'whiter than the silvered dove'. The single 'purple vein' in the 'wan marble' of her throat hints at life held quietly in check. The girl is precious because she seems untouched, and the speaker's own restraint mirrors hers.
Love as worship
The last six lines turn love into a religious posture. His lips will 'praise her without cease', as in a hymn, and he will not dare 'to kiss her feet', a gesture of devotion before a saint. The comparison with Dante and Beatrice places him in Paradise. The title, 'Madonna Mia', uses the same word as the name for the Virgin, blending beloved and holy figure.
A portrait in colour
The first eight lines are built like a painted portrait, feature by feature and colour by colour: brown hair, eyes like 'bluest water', pale cheeks, a red lip, a white throat, one purple vein. The comparisons are to cool, still things, water seen through mist, a dove, marble. The effect is of a figure admired rather than touched, like an image in a church.
Context
Madonna Mia is a sonnet in the Rosa Mystica group of Wilde's Poems (1881). Its Italian title means 'my lady'. The closing lines refer to Dante's Paradiso, in which Dante and Beatrice rise to the seventh heaven, the sphere of Saturn, then lying beneath the constellation of the Lion, and see a golden ladder reaching upward.
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