ready coin,
    “No mortal need be poor,—­’t is his own fault
    If such he be;—­if he court poverty,
    Let all its miseries be his to bear.” 
        ’T is many years since he the proud spake thus,
    And men and things have greatly changed since then. 
        No more in wealth he rolls,—­men’s fortunes change. 
        I met a lonely hearse, slowly it passed
    Toward the church-yard.  ’T was unattended
    Save by one old man, and he the sexton. 
    With spade beneath his arm he trudged along,
    Whistling a homely tune, and stopping not. 
    He seemed to be in haste, for now and then
    He’d urge to quicker pace his walking beast,
    With the rough handle of his rusty spade. 
    Him I approached, and eagerly inquired
    Whose body thus was borne so rudely to
    Its final resting-place, the deep, dark grave. 
    “His name was Albro,” was the prompt reply. 
    “Too proud to beg, we found him starved to death,
    In a lone garret, which the rats and mice
    Seemed greatly loth to have him occupy. 
    An’ I, poor Billy Matterson, whom once
    He deemed too poor and low to look upon,
    Am come to bury him.” 
    The sexton smiled,—­
    Then raised his rusty spade, cheered up his nag,
    Whistled as he was wont, and jogged along. 
    Oft I have seen the poor man raise his hand
    To wipe the eye when good men meet the grave,—­
    But Billy Matterson, he turned and smiled. 
        The truth flashed in an instant on my mind,
    Though sad, yet deep, unchanging truth to me. 
    ’T was he, thus borne, who, in his younger days,
    Blest with abundance, used it not aright. 
    He, who blamed the poor because they were such;
    Behold his end!-too proud to beg, he died. 
        A sad example, teaching all to shun
    The rock on which he shipwrecked,—­warning take,
    That they too fall not as he rashly fell.

WORDS THAT TOUCH THE INNER HEART.

    Words, words!  O give me these,
        Words befitting what I feel,
    That I may on every breeze
        Waft to those whose riven steel
    Fetters souls and shackles hands
        Born to be as free as air,
    Yet crushed and cramped by Slavery’s bands,—­
        Words that have an influence there. 
    Words, words! give me to write
        Such as touch the inner heart;
    Not mere flitting forms of light,
        That please the ear and then depart;
    But burning words, that reach the soul,
        That bring the shreds of error out,
    That with resistless power do roll,
        And put the hosts of Wrong to rout. 
    Let others tune their lyres, and sing
        Illusive dreams of fancied joy;
    But, my own harp,—­its every string
        Shall find in Truth enough employ. 
    It shall not breathe of Freedom