I have sometimes guffawed immeasurably, at the sharp cuts and thrusts not seldom indulged in by the current writers of our country, both in periodicals and newspapers. Not that I particularly affect the vapid abortions which appear in each department, as now and then they must inevitably do: but names and sources might readily be mentioned in both, whereat the general lip shall curl you a smile, as if by intuition. Our magazines have a goodly sprinkling of the cheerful; and in dull times, one can but wish that they even had more. There is a spirit—and I mentioned but now the name of its incarnate habitation—which has gone from among us, no more to return. Ah me!—that spirit! It was stored with sublunary lore; calm, philosophical, observant; a lens, through which the colors of a warm heart, full of genuine philanthropy and goodness, shone forth upon the world. It was sportive in its satire, and its very sadness was cheerful. Grasping and depicting the Great, it yet ennobled and beautified the Small. Its messengers of thought, winged and clothed with beautiful plumage, went forth in the world, to please by their changeableness, or to impress the eye of fancy with their enduring loveliness. Such was the spirit of Sands, whose light was quenched forever, while 'inditing a good matter' for the very pages which now embody this feeble tribute to his genius. I well remember, when I first approached his native city, after his death, how thick-coming were the associations connected with his memory, which brought the tears into my eyes. The distant shades of Hoboken, where he so loved to wander; the spreading bay, whereon his 'rapt, inspired' eye has so often rested; the city, towering sleepily afar; the fairy hues of coming twilight, trembling over the glassy Hudson, sloop-bestrown; the half-silver, half-emerald shades, blending together under the heights of Weehawken—these, appealing to my eye, recalled the Lost to my side. I looked to the shore, and there
'The shadows of departed hours
Hung dim upon the early flowers;
Even in their sunshine seemed to brood
Something more deep than solitude.'
No bard, 'holy and true,' was ever more deeply imbued than Sands with 'the spirit of song.' Sublimity, tenderness, description, all were his. But in his dissertations on all subjects, his struggling humor at last came uppermost. From classic stores, he could educe the novel jeu d'esprit; from fanciful premises, the most amusing conclusions. Having given a pleasant line or two from one of his happiest sketches, I feel irresistibly inclined to encompass the whole. It is necessary, beforehand, to discern the preamble of the argument. A fellow-minstrel has indited and published to the world a fanciful picture of the national eagle, in all his original wildness, surrounded with characteristic scenery. The picture is a grand one, but over-colored; and would seem to have been drawn according to the admitted principle of the writer in composition, that 'whatever he writes is either superlatively good, or sheer nonsense.' The former quality predominates; but there is enough of the latter in all he has written. The minstrel just mentioned also gave birth to a midnight phantom, or the sketch of a most supernal steed; the burlesque presentment whereof is hereto annexed, together with certain allusions to the feathery emblem of the republic, which show that the limner knew how to kill two rare objects with one satirical 'fragment of granite:'
'A misty dream—and a flashy maze—
Of a sunshiny flush—and a moonshiny haze!
I lay asleep with my eyes open wide,
When a donkey came to my bedside,
And bade me forth to take a ride.
It was not a donkey of vulgar breed,
But a cloudy vision—a night-mare steed!
His ears were abroad like a warrior's plume—
From the bosom of darkness was borrowed the gloom
Of his dark, dark hide, and his coal black hair,
But his eyes like no earthly eyes they were!
Like the fields of heaven where none can see
The depths of their blue eternity!
Like the crest of a helmet taught proudly to nod,
And wave like a meteor's train abroad,
Was the long, long tail, that glorified
The glorious donkey's hinder side!
And his gait description's power surpasses—
'T was the beau ideal of all jack-asses.
'I strode o'er his back, and he took in his wind—
And he pranced before—and he kicked behind—
And he gave a snort, as when mutterings roll
Abroad from pole to answering pole—
While the storm-king sits on the hail-cloud's back,
And amuses himself with the thunder-crack!
Then off he went, like a bird with red wings,
That builds her nest where the cliff-flower springs—
Like a cloudy steed by the light of the moon,
When the night's muffled horn plays a windy tune;
And away I went, while my garment flew
Forth on the night breeze, with a snow-shiny hue—
Like a streak of white foam on a sea of blue.
Up-bristled then the night-charger's hair too,
Like a bayonet grove, at a 'shoulder-hoo!'
'Hurra! hurra! what a hurry we made!
My hairs rose too, but I was not afraid;
Like a stand of pikes they stood up all,
Each eye stood out like a cannon ball;
So rapt I looked, like the god of song;
As I shot and whizzed like a rocket along.
Thus through the trough of the air as we dash'd,
Goodly and glorious visions flash'd
Before my sight with a flashing and sparkling,
In whose blaze all earthly gems are darkling.
As the gushes of morning, the trappings of eve,
Or the myriad lights that will dance when you give
Yourself a clout on the orb of sight,
And see long ribands of rainbow light;
Such were the splendors, and so divine,
So rosy and starry, and fiëry and fine.
'Then eagle! then stars! and then rainbows! and all
That I saw at Niagara's tumbling fall,
Where I sung so divinely of them and their glories,
While mewed in vile durance, and kept by the tories;
Where the red cross flag was abroad on the blast,
I sat very mournful, but not downcast.
My harp on the willows I did not hang up,
Nor the winglets of fancy were suffered to droop,—
But I soared, and I swooped, like a bird with red wings,
Who mounts to the cloud-god, and soaringly sings.