“While I sit at the door,

Sick to gaze within,

Mine eye weepeth sore

For sorrow and sin:

As a tree my sin stands

To darken all lands;

Death is the fruit it bore.

 “How have Eden bowers grown

Without 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 stay

Safe in our garden

By putting me away

Beyond all pardon.

 “I, Eve, sad mother

Of all who must live,

I, not another,

Plucked bitterest fruit to give

My 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 sleeping

Slain by his brother.

Greatest and least

Each piteous beast

To hear her voice

Forgot his joys

And set aside his feast.

The mouse paused in his walk

And dropped his wheaten stalk;

Grave cattle wagged their heads

In rumination;

The eagle gave a cry

From his cloud station;

Larks on thyme beds

Forbore to mount or sing;

Bees drooped upon the wing;

The raven perched on high

Forgot his ration;

The conies in their rock,

A feeble nation,

Quaked sympathetical;

The mocking-bird left off to mock;

Huge camels knelt as if

In deprecation;

The kind hart ‘s tears were falling;

Chattered the wistful stork;

Dove-voices with a dying fall

Cooed desolation,

Answering grief by grief.

Only the serpent in the dust,

Wriggling and crawling,

Grinned an evil grin, and thrust

His tongue out with its fork.

Rosetti looks at grief from the point of view of a biblical figure – Eve. She talks of Eve’s yearning to get back to the Garden of Eden and regret at what she’s done to lead to her expulsion. “While I sit at the door,
/Sick to gaze within,
/Mine eye weepeth sore/For sorrow and sin:/As a tree my sin stands/To darken all lands;/Death is the fruit it bore.”

She talks of how the wrong decision has led to a life of regret and destruction “I chose the Tree of Death.”

She pines for her old, happier life which would have brought joy to her children “God might have let thee stay/Safe in our garden.”

Denny Bradbury also looks at grief of a biblical figure in her recent song titled ‘We are alone within the night of loneliness’, to the tune of Londonderry Air. It’s from a short play she’s written dwelling on the life of Ruth from the Old Testament.

It’s a tender story of a daughter-in-law’s love for her mother in law after all their husbands or sons have died.  They travel back to Israel but one being very young decides to stay with her family in a foreign country.  We are alone within the night of loneliness is sung by all three women as the youngest prepares to leave them.

The grief of the three women is clear in Denny’s song, but unlike in Rosetti’s poem, there is hope. “we have not seen much light within the darkness/but we have God, he’s there for me and you”.

Whereas Eve in Rosetti’s poem wishes God could forgive her and turn back time, the daughter’s in Denny’s song know he’ll help them get through this tough period for them. “we will get by with every passing day/because we feel the love that is within us all”.

we are alone within the night of loneliness

we have each been a wife and now we’re through

we have not seen much light amid the darkness

but we have God, he’s there for me and you

and this we know that though our lives are difficult

we will get by with every passing day

because we feel the love that is within us all

and so we smile and sleep and in our hearts we pray

Dear God do not let us go through more torment

we will be safe as long as we abide

with honour, gentleness and purest honesty

we each have love and live with God beside

My daughters

Dear Mother

we will always be together

as long as you both know that we are three

bonded in love, so know that we must leave here

(Naomi) go to your kin and love them as you have loved me

(Orpah) I will go back and find my long lost family

(Ruth) I will not go for you I’ll never ever leave