O Mary Mother! be not loth
To listen—thou whom the stars clothe,
Who seest and mayst not be seen
Hear us at last, O Mary Queen!
Into our shadow bend thy face,
Bowing thee from the secret place,
O Mary Virgin, full of grace!
Mr. Rosetti certainly does not affect classical subjects. There is nothing in his curious Treasury at all corresponding to those most exquisite of all Mr. Tennyson's poems, “Ulysses” and “Tithonus.” In the few instances in which he does handle classical legend, it is always its quaint reflection in the mediæval mind that attracts him, as in “Troy Town,” but he is at home everywhere. “Eden Bower” and “Sister Helen” are like and unlike enough for comparison. They are both monologues of deadly sin; the first is spite, the second hate, set to music. The conception of Lilith in “Eden Bower” is a monstrous waif of rabbinical tradition. She is a sort of woman-snake, supposed to have been Adam's first wife before the creation of Eve, and in her jealousy of the wife who supplanted her is found the origin of her conspiracy with the king-snake of Eden which brings about the Fall. The poem is one prolonged musical but most diabolical chuckle of Lilith over the immortal mischief she is about to perpetrate. She is indeed all the while coaxing the serpent to help her, but her tone throughout is one of assured triumph. The woman and the fiend are interwoven with marvellous subtlety—a fiend's colossal blasphemy and a woman's petty spite. The fiend does not shrink from declaring open war against heaven.
“Strong is God, the fell foe of Lilith
(And O the bower and the hour!)—