The first poem in Pulter’s manuscript boldly traverses vast distances—cosmological, mythological, and theological—as the speaker objects to various obstacles to her clear vision of the heavens: that is, both the skies above and, ultimately, the God above them. Uniquely among her poems, “The Eclipse” is set forth in numbered sections, with numerals 1 through 4 carving out two-sestain sections, each addressing a distinct figure: clouds, the earth, the moon. These figures are characterized as material obstacles which are in the way at the moment but ultimately mortal; the speaker seems comforted by her contemplation, or the threat, of their eventual “dissolution.” Mortality itself, in the form of a personified Death, is then directly addressed in the fourth section, while in what could be considered the unnumbered fifth section, the speaker turns to sin as the most obdurate obstacle between herself and heaven. While the ranks of obstacles thus assembled each in turn appear formidable, only the last sees the speaker daunted, before a final stanza expresses her faith in Christ’s triumph over sin on her behalf. The poem is in iambic pentameter stanzas, rhyming ABABCC.