ELIZABETH CARTER,

Born 1717, died 1806,

The daughter of Dr. Nicholas Carter, minister of Deal, has justly acquired great celebrity by her Translation of Epictetus. She published a volume of poems in 1762: her Ode to Wisdom first appeared in Richardson's Clarissa.

Ode to Wisdom.

THE solitary bird of night

Through the thick shades now wings his flight,

And quits this time-shook tower; Where, shelter'd from the blaze of day,

In philosophic gloom he lay,

Beneath his ivy bower.

With joy I hear the solemn sound,

Which midnight echoes waft around,

And sighing gales repeat:

Favourite of Pallas! I attend,

And, faithful to thy summons, bend

At Wisdom's awful seat.

She loves the cool, the silent eve,

Where no false shows of life deceive,
Beneath the lunar ray.

Here Folly drops each vain disguise,
Nor sport her gaily-colour'd dyes,
As in the beam of day.

O Pallas! queen of every art,

That glads the sense, and mends the heart,
Blest source of purer joys:

In every form of beauty bright,
That captivates the mental sight,
With pleasure and surprise:

To thy unspotted shrine I bow:
Attend thy modest suppliant's vow,
That breathes no wild desires :
But, taught by thy unerring rules,
To shun the fruitless wish of fools,

Not Fortune's gem, Ambition's plume,

Nor Cytherea's fading bloom,

Be objects of my prayer: Let avarice, vanity, and pride,

Those envied, glittering toys, divide,

The dull rewards of care.

To me thy better gifts impart,

Each moral beauty of the heart,

By studious thoughts refin'd;

For wealth, the smiles of glad content,
For power, its amplest, best extent,
An empire o'er the mind.

When Fortune drops her

gay parade,

When Pleasure's transient roses fade,

And wither in the tomb,

Unchang'd is thy immortal prize;

Thy ever-verdant laurels rise

In undecaying bloom.

By thee protected, I defy

The coxcomb's sneer, the stupid lie

Of ignorance and spite: Alike contemn the leaden fool,

And all the pointed ridicule

Of undiscerning wit.

From envy, hurry, noise, and strife,
The dull impertinence of life,

In thy retreat I rest:

Pursue thee to the peaceful groves,
Where Plato's sacred spirit roves,

In all thy beauties drest.

He bade Ilissus' tuneful stream
Convey thy philosophic theme,
Of perfect, fair, and good:
Attentive Athens caught the sound,
And all her listening sons around
In awful silence stood:

Reclaim'd, her wild licentious youth Confess'd the potent voice of truth, And felt its just control:

The passions ceas'd their loud alarms, And virtue's soft persuasive charms O'er all their senses stole.

Thy breath inspires the poet's song,
The patriot's free, unbiass'd tongue,
The hero's generous strife;
Thine are retirement's silent joys,
And all the sweet engaging ties
Of still, domestic life.

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, eternal source
Of intellectual light!

O send her sure, her steady ray,
To regulate my doubtful way,
Through life's perplexing road;
The mists of error to control,

And through its gloom direct my soul
To happiness and good!

Beneath her clear, discerning eye,
The visionary shadows fly

Of folly's painted show:

She sees, through every fair disguise,
That all but virtue's solid joys

Is vanity and woe.

TO A GENTLEMAN,

On his intending to cut down a Grove to enlarge his Prospect.

IN plaintive sounds, that tun'd to woe

The sadly-sighing breeze,

A weeping Hamadryad mourn'd

Her fate-devoted trees.

Ah! stop thy sacrilegious hand,

Nor violate the shade,