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: 1766

"Here Death his melancholy pomp displays, / And all his terrors strike on Fancy's eye: / To Fancy's ear each hollow gale conveys, / In chilling sounds, the last expiring sigh."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1766

"Mute is each Syren Passion's faithless song / Check'd and suspended by the solemn scene: / Mute the wild clamours of the giddy throng, / And only heard the "still small voice" within."

— 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)