MSMQ Peek not working right

I am trying to peek a message off of a queue and it works, but it doesn't.
Here's the code i am using:

[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Messaging")
$queue = new-object System.Messaging.MessageQueue
"FormatNameIRECT=OS:servername\private$\test"
$queue.Formatter.TargetTypes = ,"System.String"
$peekmsg = $queue.Peek()
$ts = new-object TimeSpan 30000000
$peekmsg = $queue.Peek($ts)
Write-Host $peekmsg.Body

If I have the following in the body...:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<string>hello world</string>

Then the "Write-Host $pkmsg.Body" outputs:

hello world

But if I have the following in the body...:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<StandardDate>
<Year>0</Year>
<Month>11</Month>
<DayOfWeek>0</DayOfWeek>
<Day>1</Day>
<Hour>2</Hour>
<Minute>0</Minute>
<Second>0</Second>
<Millisecond>0</Millisecond>
</StandardDate>

Then the "Write-Host $pkmsg.Body" command outputs nothing. I have read all
sorts hits about how to do this in C#, but I can't translate that into
powershell-ese and apparently nobody in the universe is doing MSMQ with
powershell.

I'm still learning powershell, so I'm pretty much stuck. Any ideas or
examples would be appreciated!

Thanks,
/drez