In his poem, "Mary's Girlhood," Rossetti shows the Virgin Mary during childhood. "This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect, God's Virgin." He then goes on to enumerate her many wonderful traits. Besides her "supreme patience" and "simplicity of intellect," Rossetti paints her as "faithful and hopeful; wise in charity; strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect." All of these traits, however, have a somewhat jarring connotation., The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. In both, she appears as a somber, mature individual. Furthermore, even as in the poem she emerges as "an angel-watered lily, that near God grows and is quiet," in the painting she appears a beautiful young woman, yet dressed simply and, though attending a lesson, staring at an angel playing by some lilies.