Eve illustration by Florence Harrison“Eve”–Christina Rossetti“While I sit at the door,Si

Eve illustration by Florence Harrison“Eve”–Christina Rossetti“While I sit at the door,Sick to gaze within,Mine eye weepeth soreFor sorrow and sin:As a tree my sin standsTo darken all lands;Death is the fruit it bore."How have Eden bowers grownWithout Adam to bend them!How have Eden flowers blown,Squandering their sweet breath,Without me to tend them!The Tree of Life was ours,Tree twelvefold-fruited,Most lofty tree that flowers,Most deeply rooted:I chose the Tree of Death."Hadst thou but said me nay,Adam, my brother,I might have pined away;I, but none other:God might have let thee staySafe in our gardenBy putting me awayBeyond all pardon."I, Eve, sad motherOf all who must live,I, not another,Plucked bitterest fruit to giveMy friend, husband, lover.O wanton eyes run over!Who but I should grieve? -Cain hath slain his brother:Of all who must die mother,Miserable Eve!”Thus she sat weeping,Thus Eve, our mother,Where one lay sleepingSlain by his brother.Greatest and leastEach piteous beastTo hear her voiceForgot his joysAnd set aside his feast.The mouse paused in his walkAnd dropped his wheaten stalk;Grave cattle wagged their headsIn rumination;The eagle gave a cryFrom his cloud station;Larks on thyme bedsForbore to mount or sing;Bees drooped upon the wing;The raven perched on highForgot his ration;The conies in their rock,A feeble nation,Quaked sympathetical;The mocking-bird left off to mock;Huge camels knelt as ifIn deprecation;The kind hart’s tears were falling;Chattered the wistful stork;Dove-voices with a dying fallCooed desolation,Answering grief by grief.Only the serpent in the dust,Wriggling and crawling,Grinned an evil grin, and thrustHis tongue out with its fork. -- source link

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