VALEDICTORY.

ye

"Insomuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, did it unto me." Many of our readers remember with much interest several poetical contributions to the Gazette, within the last two years, indicating their source from the State Lunatic Asylum, and pervaded by a plaintive beauty, and a sweetly spoken sorrow, which revealed something of the darkened lot of the gentle writer, who by her musical utterances thus gave her friends some glimpses of the brightness of the star, obscured but not extinguished. The pleasure of our readers cannot be greater than our own, to welcome from our fair correspondent the following lines, written in commemoration of her happy recovery and restoration to her friends.-Taunton Gazette.

WHAT Strange, conflicting thoughts my bosom swayed,

The long-sought hour had come, so long delayed.

At last the heavy, massive bolt turned back,
Opening to me, again, life's beaten track.
With half-reluctant steps, I passed once more
Down the broad stairs and through the lofty

door.

Gentle and winning in its loveliness,

With lifted hands a troubled world to bless;
An ark of refuge and a home of rest

To minds benighted and with gloom oppressed. When royal summer's bright and glorious reign

With bloom and fragrance crowned the hill and plain,

How oft my feet have pressed the verdant glade!
How oft along those winding paths I've strayed!
As then, it rose before my mental view,
Its waving woods, its skies so soft and blue,
The placid river, with its silvery sheen,
The hill and meadows, in their mantles green,
In whose health-giving air so many find
Rest for the weary heart and burthened mind.

And then regretful memory came to trace,
Anew, each well-remembered form and face.

As thus I gazed, a glow of love and pride
Sent to my pallid cheek the crimson tide.
Land, for whose liberty our fathers died!
Where else are found such homes as this? I
cried:

O blest descendants of the Pilgrim band,
Ye favored children of a favored land!
Do you in any other country see
A charity so boundless and so free?
Where to misfortune is such honor paid?
For every want such wise provision made?

In what some term the happy days of yore,
The harmless maniac roamed from door to door.
From early dawn of day till set of sun,
The sport of childhood, and the care of none:
If wild and dangerous, in chains confined,
To some dark, dreary, cheerless cell consigned,
Unwarmed, unclothed, long weary years he lay,
Till want and hardship wore his life away!
Through all our land, no calm and safe retreat
Like this, was opened to his weary feet.
But now, behold how thick and fast they rise!
With lofty domes they pierce the vaulted skies!
The richest trophies of her fair renown,
The brightest jewels in her glorious crown!

All hail Religion! lofty, pure, and free, How can we measure all we owe to thee? This is thy glorious work, thy priceless dower! Thy holy charm we bless, thy power we own. The richest tribute to thy mighty power! "Tis thine the hard and stubborn heart to move; The triumph and the praise are thine alone! To teach the unruly tongue the law of love. To check the passions in their headlong course, Bid moral power dethrone the law of force. Point out the errors of the olden way, And show the might of love's resistless sway; To due subjection, baser passions awe, Dispense a milder creed, a wiser law.

Guardians of minds benighted and astray! Ye faithful pilots through the dangerous way! To whom I've looked, in hours of gloom and pain,

For aid and counsel,-
-nor have looked in vain!
Turn not away, bear with me, while I seek,
In faltering tones, a parting word to speak.
("Happy is he who to the end endures!")
A heavy charge, an arduous office yours,
No thornless couch, no cool and shady bowers;
No bed of roses, and no path of flowers.

I cannot tell you all,-tears dim my sight,
And the hand trembles as I strive to write.
Our deepest feelings words can ne'er reveal,
The tongue may falter, but the heart can feel.
Friends, whom on earth I may not meet again,
If word or deed of mine has caused you pain
When heavy clouds hung darkly o'er the soul,
If I have spurned thy wise and mild control;
With needless cares the burthened mind per-
plexed,

With many a fancied ill, annoyed and vexed-
Forgive, forgive! thy friendly task is o'er,
Thy strength, thy patience I shall try no more.

Far from them now, no scornful lip can say
That fear or favor guides my pen to-day;
Within my hand no glittering bribe I hold;
The praise I render is not bought with gold;
Unswayed by interest, unawed by fear,
'Tis the just tribute of a heart sincere.

Ye, to whose daily, hourly care, are given Disordered minds, by wave and tempest driven, Whose part it is to smooth their darkened way; A strict account to render day by day;

Read not these simple lines with scornful eye,Ye may be better, wiser far than I.

The hand that traced them may be small and

weak,

Yet true and earnest are the words I speak.
Ofttimes to eyes shut from the glare of day,
God gives, to light the soul, a purer ray.
That higher, deeper knowledge that he hides
From wisdom's children, he to babes confides.
How useful is the path your feet pursue!
How solemn is the trust reposed to you!
Be kind and gentle, faithful, wise, and just-
Prove not unworthy of that sacred trust!
For listen to the words I speak: If you
Arc to that trust in word or deed untrue,
When at the dread, eternal bar ye stand,
God will require it of your careless hand!

Open and truthful as the light of day,
Fear not the arm of power, the face of clay.
Bring to, thy work a spirit pure and high-
Ye serve one Master, him, whose sleepless eye
Can pierce the thickest wall, the darkest night,
Ob, act as ever in his holy sight!

And oh, may he, whose holiest name is Love, With power divine each word and action move; Through every trial be your shield and stay, And give you strength and patience day by day, From those, whose skilful fingers guide the helm When dangers threaten, and when waves o'erwhelm;

Whose strong and willing arms from wrong

Source of all truth, Author of every good! Our Guide and Guardian by land and flood! Whose watchful care the lonely orphan bless; Judge and Defender of the fatherless! With trembling hands, low at thy feet I lay; The heavy debt, I have no power to pay, Where'er their future paths and homes may be, Deal thou with them as they have dealt with me. M. G. H.

AN OLD MAN'S MUSINGS. He dwelt in solitude; his brain grew rife With thoughts of ancient years, which came to him

Old, old traditions, cobweb'd, faint, and dim, As from another life.

What is the past but a tradition,—far,

Far and half hidden in deep memory's cell?
What are the thoughts which used to rise and
But banners stained in war?
swell,

Stained in the many conflicts from their birth,
Losing their lustre in the course of time;
We deemed in youth they'd rise to heights
sublime,

We see them fall to earth.

Oh, racking thought, the highest genius lent

But makes the man to suffering more prone, That which he deems his greatest good, alone Brings its own punishment.

For knowledge yearns for knowledge, till desire
Becomes a passion, but the straining mind
Within its body prison all confined,
Finds it can rise no higher.

Is this what I have lived for, but to know
My past a night filled full of idle dreams,
Vague visions, fancy flittings, paltry schemes,
The sum of all below?

Thus mused an old man till the morning light
Banished the darkness :-with the rising sun
If thou wilt act aright.
There came a voice, "Thy life is but begun

"Old as thou art, and though earth's shadows

close

DESTRUCTION OF FORT SUMTER.

In vain has been all the prudent, gentle, brotherly care of the President of the United States to avoid bloodshed. Patience and forbearance were carried to their utmost limits. Major Anderson, by orders of James Buchanan, unresistingly suffered the rebels to build a wall of fire round him. Had he used his guns, they could have raised none of the forts from which his walls have been battered down. Encircled by his enemies he was perfectly quiet. When his provisions were nearly exhausted, he proposed to the insurgents to withdraw all the troops but a sergeant and two men,-but this was refused. Indeed, it would have been impossible for the smallest force to have been less aggressive than these eighty men had been. Not until the last moment did the government move, by giving notice of its intention to send mere provisions to those starving men, peaceably if permitted. Then came the premeditated outrage; eight thousand men poured their fire upon this little band, which had never by word or deed offended them. The object was to make war, and thus spread the contagion of rebellion to Virginia. Thank God! that not even an indiscretion can be charged upon the President, who will now have the support of every loyal heart.

16 April, 1861.

From The New York Sun, 13 April. THERE is a God who governs the world, and the passions of bad men are among the leading instruments by which he " coerces states and empires to fulfil his inscrutable decrees. Human passion is the "rod of iron" with which he is said to rule the nations. It moves at his touch, or rather like certain pieces of machinery, which a controlled spring is permitted at the proper moment to actuate of itself-whenever it suits the all-wise Ruler to modify or remove the pressure which he keeps upon human depravity, it springs forth with the blind fury of a demon, to execute whatever work of destruction and change had been decreed. It is but a stolid impiety, to live in a time like this, unconscious of the plain evidence in current events, of a grand and awful plan of Providence relative to both the good and the bad institutions of our country. For four months past, every day has afforded fresh demonstration that for Divine purposes the elements of disloyalty, violence, and passion that predominate in the Southern character, have been deprived of all restraint,

and the people given over to the madness which makes them at once the blindest and the most destructive implements of a Providence of whose ends they know nothing. Every object which the States now in revolt have proposed to themselves, could have been secured, peaceably and lawfully, had prudence, instead of passion and blind selfwill, controlled their councils. Even up to yesterday, supposing their people actually fixed in the desire for a separate nationality, a little time, calmness, and patience would have gained it, with peace, prosperity, and security. But on the contrary, every step of this atrocious revolt has proved the madness which rushes on destruction, and eagerly does all that common prudence would forbid. The solemn portent of the hour, like a flaming sword hanging over the doomed States and institutions of the South, is that they are thus bereft of all good influences, rational or divine, and given over to monstrous delusion and frenzy, such as poor human nature falls under only when utterly forsaken of God.

The world already stands amazed at the unmixed folly of their crimes-and when it learns that they have this day crowned all the rest by wantonly, viciously and gratuitously commencing unprovoked war upon the forbearing and pacífic government they have rebelled against, their doom, and that of all that depends on them, will be written high and plain before the eyes of all mankind. Such another preternatural instance of judicial blindness and self-destruction can scarce be found in history; if, perhaps, we except the fanatical and terrible obstinacy of that revolt which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the extinction of the Jewish nationality.

While we stand in awe at the visible "finger of God" in the great events of the hour, the Christian, at least, should watch the paternal Providence with strengthening hope and solemn cheer. Mercy and judgment are mingled in the storm. We shall not come out of this conflict where we went in, nor as we went in. The love of liberty, of country, of the rights of man, of truth and honor, of law and justice, had sunk too low in the corruption and venality of our times, for any resuscitation less violent and convulsive than this. When the heavens are rolled together as a scroll, and the earth on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, then look we according to his promise, for a new heaven and a new earth in which dwelleth righteousness. So in the minor convulsions that prefigure and prepare for the last great change, we may find the same promise and a like result-a new and better country.