The Poets and Poetry of the West: With Biographical and Critical Notices/Horace P. Biddle
HORACE P. BIDDLE.
Horace P. Biddle is the youngest of a family of nine children. His father was one of the adventurous pioneers who early made the "Western country their home. He migrated to Marietta in 1789. After residing on the Muskingum river until 1802, he removed to Fairfield county, Ohio, where Horace P. was born, about the year 1818. He received a good common school education, to which he afterward added a knowledge of the Latin, French and German languages. He read law with Hocking H. Hunter, of Lancaster, and was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of Ohio, at Cincinnati, in April, 1839. In October of the same year he settled in Logansport, Indiana, where he has since resided.
Mr. Biddle has made several excellent translations from French and German poets. His version of Lamartine's beautiful poem, "The Swallow," was copied in many leading journals. At an early age he commenced writing rhymes. One of his pieces, printed when he was fifteen years old, contained merit enough to induce another poet to claim it as his own. In 1842 he became a contributor to the Southern Literary Messenger. Since that time he has furnished occasional articles, prose as well as poetical, to the Ladies' Repository, Cincinnati, and to other literary periodicals. A collection of his poems was published in a pamphlet form, in 1850, under the title "A Few Poems." Two years later a second edition appeared. It attracted the attention of Washington Irving, who, in a letter to the author, said, "I have read your poems with great relish: they are full of sensibility and beauty, and bespeak a talent well worthy of cultivation. Such blossoms should produce fine fruit." In 1858, an enlarged edition was published at Cincinnati,[1] with an essay entitled "What is Poetry?" The author elaborately discusses the definitions that have been given by eminent thinkers, and then decides that "poetry is beautiful thought, expressed in appropriate language—having no reference to the useful."
An active and prosperous professional life has not prevented Mr. Biddle from being drawn into the political arena. On the nomination of Henry Clay for the presidency, he advocated his election, and was placed upon the electoral ticket. In 1845 he became a candidate for the Legislature, but was defeated. He was elected Presiding Judge of the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court in December, 1846, in which office he continued until 1852. He was a member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention, which assembled in 1850. Although the district was against his party, he received a majority of over two hundred votes. In 1852 he was nominated for Congress, but failed to receive the election. He was elected Supreme Judge in 1857, by a large majority, but the Governor, Ashbel P. Willard, refused to commission him, for the reason that no vacancy in the office existed. The Republican party again, in 1858, brought him forward as a candidate for the same position, but the ticket was not successful.
Mr. Biddle leads a somewhat retired life at his residence, "The Island Home," near Logansport, but has not altogether abandoned the practice of law. He has a well-selected library and a good collection of musical instruments, which occupy a large portion of his leisure hours. He has frequently delivered lectured on literary and scientific topics. It is understood that he is preparing for the press a work on the musical scale, for which original merit is claimed.
HAPPY HOURS.
Will never bring them back.
But bears them off like faded flowers
That strew his endless track.
That round my pillow cling.
And dream them o'er again, it seems
He never stirred his wing.
His little urchin boy.
It calls to mind those halcyon days,
When all I knew was joy.
My mother gave her son;
Again I share a mother's bliss,
Forgetting that she's gone.
That erst I loved to greet.
And hear each voice's well-known strain.
Again we seem to meet!
While fading in the past.
E'en grief and anguish lose their power,
And cease to pain at last.
And silvers them with gray.
His crumbling touch can never mark
The spirit with decay.
And weaves them in a wreath.
And with them twines our well-spent hours
To blunt the dart of death.
We oft recall the strain,
So when our happy hours are past,
They come to us again.
And gloomy hours with gay,
He bring us back the happy hours,
And bears the sad away.
Along the path we tread,
And only count the happy hours,
Forgetting all the sad.
Fond hope soon comes to prove,
That though 'tis sometimes dark below,
'Tis always bright above!
THE ANGEL AND THE FLOWER.
Spring to the Summer's breath;
I looked again—twas but an hour—
And lo, 'twas laid in death!
Why such to earth were given?
The angel said, "They spring below.
But have their bloom in heaven!"
LOVE AND WISDOM.
And pouring out their treasure,
When the fond breast is beating high
With Love's delicious pleasure.
Oh, why should Wisdom ever come
To cast a shade o'er feeling,
Oh, why should Wisdom ever come,
Life's sweetest pleasure stealing!
And heart to heart is leaning,
Feeling what cannot be expressed,
Though Love divines the meaning;
Oh, why should Wisdom ever come
To cast a shade o'er feeling,
Oh, why should Wisdom ever come,
Life's sweetest pleasure stealing!
This truth is past concealing;
Wisdom must see; Love has no eyes,
But trusts alone to feeling;
Then why should Wisdom ever come
To cast a shade o'er feeling,
Oh, why should Wisdom ever come,
Life's sweetest pleasure stealing!
As fruit discards the blossom,
Oh, take old Wisdom, let Love stay,
He's dearer to my bosom;
For why should Wisdom ever come
To cast a shade o'er feeling,
Oh, why should Wisdom ever come,
Life's sweetest pleasure stealing!
BIRTH OF CUPID.
And lodged in the cup of a flower;
While trembling there, 'twas embraced by a sigh.
And Cupid was born in the bower.
The child of a sigh and a tear,
And reared on the sweets of a flower's breast,
Why marvel he's wayward, sweet, tender, and dear?
IDOLA.
You see the tear-drop start;
She is too tender and too beautiful
For death's unerring dart;
Yet God receives the dutiful—
Be still, my heart!
- ↑ A Few Poems. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co., 1858. 12mo, pp 240.