At the time of the appearance of the procession at the City Hall at least twenty thousand persons were assembled in the immediate neighborhood. While awaiting the arrival of the procession a number of German singing bands were marched into the open space before the Hall, and arranged on either side of the entrance, preparatory to the singing of a requiem to the dead. The procession entered the Park at about half-past eleven o'clock, and the hearse stopped before the entrance to the Hall. Here the coffin was immediately taken from the hearse and carried up the stairs to the catafalque which had been prepared for its reception, while the singing societies rendered two very appropriate dirges. The interior of the City Hall had been decorated with much taste. Across the dome a black curtain was drawn, and the rays of light thus conducted fell subdued upon the sad but imposing spectacle. Henry T. Tuckerman, a member of the Committee on Resolutions, wrote the following ode for the funeral obsequies, on the 25th day of April, 1865, at New York City. The Athenaeum Club participated, bearing an appropriate banner, the members wearing distinctive badges of mourning and under the leadership of their Vice-President, Henry E. Pierpont; the President, William T. Blodgett, being at that time absent acting as Chairman of the Citizens Committee: ODE Shroud the banner! rear the cross! Consecrate a nation's loss; Gaze on that majestic sleep; Stand beside the bier to weep; Lay the gentle son of toil Proudly in his native soil; Crowned with honor, to his rest Bear the prophet of the West. How cold the brow that yet doth wear The impress of a nation's care; How still the heart, whose every beat Glowed with compassion's sacred heat; Rigid the lips, whose patient smile Duty's stern task would oft beguile; Blood-quenched the pensive eye's soft light; Nerveless the hand so loth to smite; So meek in rule, it leads, though dead, The people as in life it led. O let his wise and guileless sway Win every recreant today, And sorrow's vast and holy wave Blend all our hearts around his grave! Let the faithful bondmen's tears, Let the traitor's craven fears, And the people's grief and pride, Plead against the parricide! Let us throng to pledge and pray O'er the patriot martyr's clay; Then, with solemn faith in right, That made him victor in the fight, Cling to the path he fearless trod, Still radiant with the smile of God.