MR. GEORGE BEACH,

Aye, robe yourselves in black, light messengers

Whose letter'd faces to the people tell

The pulse and pressure of the passing hour.

‘ Tis fitting ye should sympathize with them,

And tint your tablets with a sable hue

Who bring them tidings of a loss so great.

What have they lost?

An upright man, who scorn'd

All subterfuge, who faithful to his trust

Guarded the interests they so highly prized,

With power and zeal unchang'd, from youth to age.

Yet there's a sadder sound of bursting tears

From woe-worn helpless ones, from widow'd forms

O'er whom he threw a shelter, for his name

Long mingled with their prayers, both night and morn.

The Missionary toward the setting sun

Will miss his liberal hand that threw so wide

Its secret alms. The sons of want will miss

His noble presence moving thro’ our streets

Intent on generous deeds; and in the Church

He loved so well, a silence and a chasm

Are where the fervent and responsive voice,

And kingly beauty of the hoary head

So long maintained their place.

Sudden he sank,

Though not unwarn'd.

A chosen band had kept

Watch through the night, and earnest love took note

Of every breath. But when approaching dawn

Kindled the east, and from the trees that bowered

His beautiful abode, awakening birds

Sent up their earliest carol, he went forth

To meet the glories of the unsetting sun,

And hear with unseal'd ear the song of heaven.

— So they who truest loved and deepest mourn'd,

Had highest call to praise, for best they knew

The soul that had gone home unto its God.