Such Sabbaths as that one she now enjoys,
  Even that perpetual one, which she employs
  (For such vicissitudes in heaven there are)
  In praise alternate, and alternate prayer. 
  All this she practised here; that when she sprung
  Amidst the choirs, at the first sight she sung: 
  Sung, and was sung herself in angels’ lays;
  For, praising her, they did her Maker praise. 
  All offices of heaven so well she knew, 130
  Before she came, that nothing there was new: 
  And she was so familiarly received,
  As one returning, not as one arrived.

    Muse, down again precipitate thy flight! 
  For how can mortal eyes sustain immortal light? 
  But as the sun in water we can bear—­
  Yet not the sun, but his reflection there,
  So let us view her, here, in what she was,
  And take her image in this watery glass: 
  Yet look not every lineament to see; 140
  Some will be cast in shades, and some will be
  So lamely drawn, you’ll scarcely know ’tis she. 
  For where such various virtues we recite,
  ’Tis like the milky-way, all over bright,
  But sown so thick with stars,’tis undistinguish’d light.

    Her virtue, not her virtues, let us call;
  For one heroic comprehends them all: 
  One, as a constellation is but one,
  Though ’tis a train of stars, that, rolling on,
  Rise in their turn, and in the zodiac run:  150
  Ever in motion; now ’tis faith ascends,
  Now hope, now charity, that upward tends,
  And downwards with diffusive good descends.

    As in perfumes composed with art and cost,
  ’Tis hard to say what scent is uppermost;
  Nor this part musk or civet can we call,
  Or amber, but a rich result of all;
  So she was all a sweet, whose every part,
  In due proportion mix’d, proclaim’d the Maker’s art. 
  No single virtue we could most commend, 160
  Whether the wife, the mother, or the friend;
  For she was all, in that supreme degree,
  That as no one prevail’d, so all was she. 
  The several parts lay hidden in the piece;
  The occasion but exerted that, or this.

    A wife as tender, and as true withal,
  As the first woman was before her fall: 
  Made for the man, of whom she was a part;
  Made to attract his eyes, and keep his heart. 
  A second Eve, but by no crime accursed; 170
  As beauteous, not as brittle, as the first: 
  Had she been first, still Paradise had been,
  And Death had found no entrance by her sin: 
  So she not only had preserved from ill
  Her sex and ours, but lived their pattern still.