Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806), To a GENTLEMAN, On his intending to cut down a GROVE to enlarge his Prospect; Epictetus

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,
Where Nature form'd a silent haunt
For Contemplation's aid.

Can'st thou, the son of Science, bred
Where learned Isis flows,
Forget that, nurs'd in shelt'ring groves,
The Grecian genius rose?

Within the plantane's spreading shade,
Immortal PLATO taught;
And fair LYCEUM form'd the depth
Of ARISTOTLE'S thought.

To Latian groves reflect thy views,
And bless the Tuscan bloom;
Where Eloquence deplor'd the fate
Of Liberty and Rome.

Retir'd beneath the beechen shade,
From each inspiring bough
The Muses wove th' unfading wreaths
24That circled VIRGIL'S brow.

Reflect before the fatal ax
My threaten'd doom has wrought;
Nor sacrifice to sensual taste
The nobler growth of thought.

Not all the glowing fruits that blush
On India's sunny coast,
Can recompence thee for the worth
Of one idea lost.

My shade a produce may supply,
Unknown to solar fire;
And what excludes APOLLO'S rays,
Shall harmonize his lyre.

More poems, from Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive

"Elizabeth Carter "the most learned lady in England" in the eighteenth century...the best Greek scholar in England" (Priscilla Dorr). "She read both late at night and early in the morning, taking snuff, chewing green tea, and using other means to keep herself awake".

Poet and first translator of Epictetus

"The valiant old woman who tied a bell to her bedside in order that she might wake early and learn Greek" (Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own).

"My old friend Mrs. Carter could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus from the Greek, and work a handkerchief as well as compose a poem"- Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Elizabeth's mother was from Bere Regis, Dorset.

DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS (MRS. CARTER'S TRANSLATION), pdf