(This is one of my favorite paintings. It is titled "The Girlhood of Mary Virgin" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The figures depicted in this painting are St. Joseph in the background, St. Ann, and Mary. Rossetti also composed a poem that went with the painting.)
This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect
God's Virgin. Gone is a great while since she
Was young in Nazareth of Galilee.
Her kin she cherished with devout respect:
Her gifts were simpleness of intellect
And supreme patience. From her mother's knee
Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;
Strong in grave peace; in duty circumspect.
So held she through her girlhood; as it were
An angel-watered lily, that near God
Grows, and is quiet. Till one dawn, at home,
She woke in her white bed, and had no fear
At all,-yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed;
Because the fulness of the time was come.