Date: 1746; December 17, 1747 [actually January, 1748]

"O Pallas! Queen of ev’ry art / That glads the sense, or mends the heart, / Blest source of purer joys: / In ev’ry form of beauty bright, / That captivates the mental sight, / With pleasure and surprize!"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1746; December 17, 1747 [actually January, 1748]

"To me thy better gifts impart, / Each moral beauty of the heart / By studious thought refin’d: / For Wealth, the smiles of glad Content, / For Pow’r, it samplest, best extent, / An empire o’er my mind."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1746; December 17, 1747 [actually January, 1748]

"The Passions ceas’d their loud alarms, / And Virtue’s soft persuasive charms / O’er all their senses stole."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1746; December 17, 1747 [actually January, 1748]

"No more to fabled names confin’d, / To Thee! Supreme, all-perfect mind, / My thoughts direct their flight: / Wisdom’s thy gift, and all her force / From Thee deriv’d, unchanging source / Of intellectual light!"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"Yet, when by Fancy’s Influence unconfin’d, / Does Wisdom give my throbbing Bosom Laws? / Do calmer Thoughts compose my ruffled Mind?"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

"Come Melancholy! silent Pow'r, / Companion of my lonely Hour, / To sober thought confin'd: / Thou sweetly-sad ideal Guest, / In all thy soothing Charms confest, / Indulge my pensive Mind."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

"Ye pale Inhabitants of Night, / Before my intellectual Sight / In solemn Pomp ascend."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

"Ye faithless Idols of our Sense, / Here own how vain your fond Pretence, / Ye empty Names of Joy!"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

"Thro' Reason's clearer Optics view'd, / How stript of all it's Pomp, how rude / Appears the painted Cheat."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)