POEMS OF BEN. D. HOUSEWITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
INDIANAPOLIS CARLON & HOLLENBECK 1892
CONTENTS.
- A Christmas Prayer 27
- Alter Ego 16
- A Summer Day 56
- At the Station 23
- A Vision of the Styx--A Dream 47
- Baby Helen 42
- Biographical Sketch1
- Coventry Bridge 33
- Dedication of the Soldiers' Orphans' Home 53
- For Seven Years 64
- From the South 22
- God's Gift 37
- Grant 17
- Home Life 36
- Hope 64
- I Am 20
- It Will Be Well 32
- Judge Not 68
- Lake Lyon 66
- Leander to Hero 13
- Love's Triumph 25
- "Maquam" 24
- Morton 52
- Myopia 63
- No Change 19
- "Present Arms!" 10
- Revealment 59
- Sugaring 45
- The Blank Bulletin-Board 65
- The Hidden Hand 31
- The Homeward Road 60
- The Master Painter 69
- The Wine of Summer 39
- Trust 68
- Were It But True 15
- Winter Etchings 28
BEN. D. HOUSE.
BORN AT SEA, NOVEMBER 18, 1844.
DIED AT INDIANAPOLIS, JULY 4,
1887.
After five years one may be surer of a judgment than on the day it is formed. In that time there is opportunity for a change of attitude and for frequent revision of opinion. In the case of an estimate of a man, it is possible to speak more dispassionately and with greater fairness. When Ben. D. House died, July 4, 1887, there were those of his friends who believed he left behind him literary work that would live. After half a decade those friends still believed in the vitality of his verse, and they wish, by this volume, to put in permanent form certain of his poems which have seemed to be worthy of a more stable setting than scrap-books. The verse contained in this volume is selected from a mass of manuscript and from the poems printed by Mr. House and given the sanction of his own signature. page: 2[View Page 2] In coming to this work, the editors have been guided by a sense of what their friend, were he living, would approve.
The life of Ben. D. House was a strange one. The restless waters of the ocean on which he was born were the prophetic symbol of his life; through it all there floated " the murmurs and scents of the infinite sea." Details of biography are lacking. We know that Mr. House's father was a Congregational clergyman, a man of cultivation, who took great interest in the sciences. The family resided at St. Johnsbury, Vt., and at other points in New England. The boy Benjamin (it was characteristic that he should always abridge his name) did not take kindly to the schools. He fought discipline as a boy, and throughout his life he maintained a personal independence that frequently involved him in difficulties. But if his education was largely self-acquired, it was wide in its range, and it was drawn from many sources. His memory was phenomenal, and what he read or learned by observation was never lost.
page: 3[View Page 3]The last of several fruitless efforts to bring the boy under the influence of teaching was being made at Boston when the civil war began. He promptly enlisted in a Massachusetts regiment and served throughout the conflict. He was utterly without the sense of fear; his spirit was that of the old chivalry that dared to do for the sake of doing, without question. He was wounded several times. At Fair Oaks he received an injury in the throat while riding a charge, and this, after a score of years, caused his death. The war impressed itself strongly upon the boy, and its influence upon his unformed character was not the best. It is easy now to look back and see how much higher and broader his career would have been had he not been plunged into the varying life of the soldier. The war was a school that taught no elementary branches; it was, to him, a university that unfolded far too rapidly the tremendous passions of life. The end of hostilities found the young man out of a congenial employment, and poorly equipped for the battles of peace. When a discharge was given him page: 4[View Page 4] he was at Indianapolis engaged in some clerical work connected with the dissolution of the army. By so slight a chance as this he became a resident of the city, and lived there the remainder of his life, with only one protracted absence. He was employed on various Indianapolis newspapers at different times and in different capacities; chiefly in the line of executive work. He was not adapted by temperament or by education to the writing of serious prose; he had no taste for editorial writing.
In 1872 he went to St. Louis with several Indianapolis gentlemen who had purchased the Democrat. Here he made some reputation by the writing of condensed paragraphs for the editorial page. It was at this time, perhaps, that he did his best work as a journalist. This employment did not last long, however, and on returning to Indianapolis, Mr. House resumed his work for newspapers. On January 27, 1873, Mr. House was married to Miss Mary Arnold Sharpe, daughter of John S. Sharpe, at Indianapolis. For some years he was employed in the United States pension agency. He served six terms (from 1881 to 1887) as adjutant-general of the page: 5[View Page 5] G. A. R. of Indiana. That organization was dear to him; its democracy and good fellowship appealed to him strongly, and he was always proud of his identification with it.
Mr. House's poems are an interesting study. He wrote easily; indeed, so little effort was required that he was prone to accept as final defective work which he might have made perfect by the exercise of a little more care. The peaceful Whittier he loved better than any other poet; from the serene Quaker he derived many ideas of form. Whittier was a model, but not to the sacrifice of his own individuality. He was too strong a character, by far, to follow servilely in the path of another. Yet, in his poems of nature, it is possible to see the influence of the master upon his pupil. Mr. House's war poems, and his poems to and of the veterans, are among his best. They are vigorous in execution and bold in their originality.
His "Present Arms!" is a stirring song of the nation's birthday. Mr. House was in demand as a reader of original poems at reunions of veterans and on like occasions. At the dedication of the Knights- page: 6[View Page 6] town Home for Soldiers' Orphans he recited to the children a poem of singular beauty. He wrote nothing better than this quatrain from that poem:
- No dole of charity ye eat
- But bread from grain that shall not fail
- Out beaten when war's sounding flail
- Threshed out men's souls like grains of wheat.
His poetry of patriotism certainly deserves a place in our Indiana literature, and in the literature that has grown out of the civil war. Its vigor, its sincerity, its imagination, are notable.
The love poems which Mr. House wrote from time to time are unequal, but a number of them are exquisite in their tenderness. "Alter Ego" and "Leander to Hero" are contributions to the world of amatory verse.
It is not maintained that Mr. House was a genius, nor that he was a profound scholar. He was neither the one nor the other. But his gifts of composition were far above the ordinary. He knew, by a kind of intuition, the value of any certain poetic idea that came to him; he put the proper ap- page: 7[View Page 7] praisement on his material and employed it to the best advantage. It will be observed that there was no great variety of measure and no distinguishing versatility in the verse forms which he employed. He wrote blank verse occasionally, and often effectively. In the poems presented in this volume no changes have been made except in the correction of obvious errors. It was a fault of Mr. House's literary workmanship that he sometimes repeated phrases, consciously or unconsciously, but his offenses were few.
Mr. House was something of an Oriental in his tastes. He was fond of perfumes, and of them, as of jewels, he knew a great deal. He was familiar with art and knew well the points of paintings, sculpture and architecture.
There are those of us to whom Thyrsis was particularly dear. He was a charming companion, and conversed on a great diversity of topics. He had a fund of rare good humor. His point of view was frequently cynical, but he was not always to be taken at his own word. There was no via media in page: 8[View Page 8] . his friendships; he was a good laver and a good hater. His fiends will recall often the man, 'in his habit as he lived.' He was a picturesque and striking figure on the street of the city. For those who knew him it will be possible always to bring him back -- the large, strong frame; the cloak, the broad hat, the swinging gait. lie was quite nearsighted and at his desk bent close to his book or paper. Recalling so slight a thing as this attitude sends a pain to the heart and makes us see again the high forehead, the sad gray eyes.
Bits of Songs that he loved are borne in on this tide of memory. The early haze of autumn hangs along the horizon as these words are penned, and the sympathetic voice of our Thyrsis- "we still had Thyrsis then!' -repeats the words he loved so well":
- Tears, idle tears I know not what they mean;
- Tears from the depth of some divine despair
- Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes
- In lookinig on the happy autumn fields
- And thinking of fthe days that are no more.
Here, in these few pages, is outined the life of a man. And here is the sheaf pf songs that he gathered in various fields, in shadow and in sunlight.
