Date: 1762

"Oft' when thy better Spirit's guardian Care / Warn'd my fond Soul to shun the tempting Snare, / My stubborn Will his gentle Aid represt, / And check’d the rising Goodness in my Breast, / Mad with vain Hopes, or urg'd by false Desires, / Still'd his soft Voice, and quench'd his sacred Fires."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"All pow’rful Grace, exert thy gentle Sway, / And teach my rebel Passions to obey: / Lest lurking Folly with insidious Art / Regain my volatile inconstant Heart."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"But long e'er Paphos rose, or Poet sung, / In heav'nly Breasts the sacred Passion sprung: / The same bright Flames in raptur'd Seraphs glow, / As warm consenting Tempers here below.

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

Friendship her soft harmonious Touch affords, / And gently strikes the sympathetic Chords, / Th' agreeing Notes in social Measures roll, / And the sweet Concert flows from Soul to Soul."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"Where, to the Beam of intellectual Day, / The genuine Charms of moral Beauty play: / With pleasing Force the strong Attractions move / Each finer Sense, and tune it into Love."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"Unreal Fantoms, empty void of Pow’r, / Borne on the fleeting Pinions of an Hour! / Desert in Death the disappointed Mind, / Nor leave a Trace of Happiness behind!"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"Pure from th' eternal Source of Being came / That Ray divine that lights the human Frame: / Yet oft, forgetful of it's heavenly Birth, / It sinks obscur'd beneath the Weight of the Earth: / Mechanic Pow'rs retard it's Flight, and hence / The Storms of Passion, and the Clouds of Sense: / 'Tis Lif...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"'Till then [death], the Muse essays the tuneful Art, / To fix her moral Lesson on thy Heart, / Illume thy Soul with Virtue's brightest Flame, / And point it to that Heav'n from whence it came."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1763, 1776

"By mercy prompted his correcting hand / Inflicts the stroke of salutary pain, / To check tyrannic Passions's wild demand, / And free our Reason from it's slavish chain."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1785

"O! ye better souls, / Ye nobler few, who slumber in your race, / Tho' well begun, and forwarded with hope, / Say, will you see a fellow-spirit lost, / Thus swallow'd in the ever-yawning gulf, / That frights the mental eye, and e'en appals / The man who firmest stands, nor lend your aid / To sav...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)