It is the dread of madness.
O, may these throbbing pulses pause,
Forgetful of their feverish course;
May this hot brain, which, burning, glows
With all a fiery whirlpool’s force,—
Be cold, and motionless, and still,
A tenant of its lowly bed;
But let not dark delirium steal——”
She died on the 27th August, 1825. Her literary labors will surprise all who remember that she had not yet reached her seventeenth birthday. They consist of two hundred and seventy-eight poetical pieces, of which there are five regular poems, of several cantos each; three unfinished romances; a complete tragedy, written at thirteen years of age; and twenty-four school exercises; besides letters, of which forty are preserved, written in the course of a few months, to her mother alone. Indeed, we cannot but look upon Lucretia Davidson as one of the wonders of humanity. Her early productions excited even the admiration of Byron; and the delicacy, dutifulness, and exaltation, of her character seemed almost to have realized angelic purity and beauty of soul, in a tenement of clay.