Marguerite; or, The Isle of Demons and Other Poems

Chapter 54: TO A YOUNG AUTHOR ON HIS BIRTHDAY.

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About This Book

A varied collection of lyric and narrative verse centered on a long romantic legend about a woman’s ordeal on a haunted island and its personal and moral aftermath, accompanied by shorter sonnets, ballads, and occasional pieces. Many poems draw on Canadian history and local scenes, offering meditative nature writing, urban sketches of Montreal and Ottawa life, winter and carnival scenes, elegies and civic tributes, and moral or humorous vignettes about everyday people. Themes of love, exile, faith, memory, and social concern recur across diverse forms and voices, blending personal reflection with regional colour and historic atmosphere.

TO A YOUNG AUTHOR
ON HIS BIRTHDAY.

Friend of my later years, whose thoughts are set To noble ends, despising the pursuit Of vices which the instinct of the brute, Incorporate in man, contends for yet;— Who out of boyhood’s slavery and fret Could issue like a sword-blade from its sheath, Resolved by high endeavor to bequeath Some good that future times may not forget,— Press on, thy better fortune leads the way, And thine is still the sesame of youth, To which the door of many a hidden truth Shall open,—so I dare to prophesy,— And ancient Error, stubborn and uncouth, Shall own thy strength and rue thy natal day.