"You ask me to give you an account of his last moments: they were such as have robbed me of all terror of death, and will afford me lasting comfort through life. The same self-composure and entire resignation which were so remarkable through his whole sickness, supported him to the end. Oh! it was not death; it was a release from mortal misery to everlasting happiness. Such calmness, when he prayed for us all--such a heavenly composure, even till the breath left him, you would have thought he was going only a short journey. During the day, his sufferings had been almost beyond enduring. Frequently did he pray that the Lord would give him patience to endure all till the end, knowing that it could not be many hours; and truly his prayers were heard. '_Lord Jesus, receive my soul_,' were the last words he uttered, and his countenance appeared as if he had a foretaste of heaven even before his spirit left this world." The fine imagination and deep enthusiasm of Dr. Godman occasionally burst forth in impassioned poetry. He wrote verse and prose with almost equal facility, and had he lived and enjoyed leisure to prune the exuberance of his style, and to bestow the last polish upon his labours, he would have ranked as one of the great masters of our language, both in regard to the curious felicity and the strength and clearness of his diction. The following specimens of his poetical compositions are selected less for their intrinsic excellence, than for the picture which they furnish of his private meditations. A MIDNIGHT MEDITATION. "'Tis midnight's solemn hour! now wide unfurled Darkness expands her mantle o'er the world; The fire-fly's lamp has ceased its fitful gleam; The cricket's chirp is hushed; the boding scream Of the gray owl is stilled; the lofty trees Scarce wave their summits to the failing breeze; All nature is at rest, or seems to sleep; 'Tis thine alone, O man! to watch and weep! Thine 'tis to feel thy system's sad decay, As flares the taper of thy life away Beneath the influence of fell disease: Thine 'tis to _know_ the want of mental ease Springing from memory of time misspent, Of slighted blessings, deepest discontent And riotous rebellion 'gainst the laws Of health, truth, heaven, to win the world's applause! --Such was thy course, Eugenio; such thy hardened heart, Till mercy spoke, and death unsheathed the dart, Twanged his unerring bow, and drove the steel Too deep to be withdrawn, too wide the wound to heal, Yet left of life a feebly glimmering ray, Slowly to sink and gently ebb away.