Date: 1738

"Thy skill my elemental Clay refin'd, / The straggling Parts in beauteous Order join'd, / With perfect Symmetry compos'd the whole, / And stampt thy sacred Image on my Soul."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1738

"Protect me by thy providential Care, / And teach my Soul t'avoid the Tempter's Snare."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1738

"Whate'er we think on't, Forune's but a Toy, / Which cheats the Soul with empty Shows of Joy; / A mere ideal Creature of the Brain, / That reigns the Idol of the Mad and Vain; / Deludes their Senses with a fair Disguise, / And sets an airy Bliss before their Eyes."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1739

"Those gifts for nobler purposes assign'd, / To raise the thoughts, and moralize the mind; / The chaste delights of virtues to inspire, / And warm the bosom with seraphic fire; / Sublime the passions, lend devotion wings, / And celebrate the first great cause of things."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"Says Body to Mind, ''Tis amazing to see, / We're so nearly related yet never agree, / But lead a most wrangling strange sort of life, / As great plagues to each other as husband and wife.'"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"The best room in my house you [the mind] have seized for your own, / And turned the whole tenement quite upside down, / While you hourly call in a disorderly crew / Of vagabond rogues, who have nothing to do / But to run in and out, hurry-scurry, and keep / Such a horrible uproar, I can't get to...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"There's my kitchen sometimes is as empty as sound, / I call for my servants, not one's to be found: / They are all sent out on your ladyship's errand, / To fetch some more riotous guests in, I warrant!"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"Poor Mind, who heard all with extreme moderation, / Thought it now time to speak, and make her allegation: / ''Tis I that, methinks, have most cause to complain, / Who am cramped and confined like a slave in a chain.'"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"I [the mind] did but step out, on some weighty affairs, / To visit last night, my good friends in the stars, / When, before I was got half as high as the moon, / You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down; / Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight, / And shut me in caverns as dark...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"'I've a friend,' answers Mind, 'who, though slow, is yet sure, / And will rid me at last of your insolent power: / Will knock down your walls, the whole fabric demolish, / And at once your strong holds and my slavery abolish: / And while in your dust your dull ruins decay, / I'll snap off my cha...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)