{
 "id": "robert-w-service/my-madonna",
 "title": "My Madonna",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert W. Service",
 "poet_slug": "robert-w-service",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Songs of a Sourdough",
 "book_slug": "songs-of-a-sourdough",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 15,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1907,
  "venue": "Songs of a Sourdough (1907)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-w-service_songs-of-a-sourdough",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25546",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 3
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I haled me a woman from the street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shameless, but, oh, so fair!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I bade her sit in the model’s seat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I painted her sitting there.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I hid all trace of her heart unclean;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "I painted a babe at her breast;",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "I painted her as she might have been",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "If the Worst had been the Best.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She laughed at my picture, and went away.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then came, with a knowing nod,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A connoisseur, and I heard him say:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“ ’Tis Mary, the Mother of God.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So I painted a halo round her hair,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And I sold her, and took my fee,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "And she hangs in the church of Saint Hilaire,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Where you and all may see.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ]
 ]
}