John Reade’s parents emigrated to Canada from Ireland in 1856, taking their family with them including their nineteen year old son; he had been born in 1837 in Ballyshannon, which is in Donegal, and originally he felt a calling to the Anglican ministry and was ordained in 1865; however, within two years illness caused him to leave his parish.
When in his twenties he had begun writing, now he returned to it and in 1870 became the literary editor of the Montreal Gazette.
The Dark Ages
The years through which aught that hath life,
O Sun,Hath watched or felt thy rising, what are they
To those vast æons when, from night to day,
From dawn to dark, thy circuit thou didst run,
With none to greet thee or regret thee; none
To bless thy glowing harbinger of cloud,
Rose-tinted; none to sigh when, like a shroud,
The banner of Night proclaimed her victory won?
Yet, through that reign of seeming death, so long
To our imperfect ken, the marvellous force
Which means to ends adjusts in Nature’s plan
Was bringing to the birth that eye of man,
Which now, O Sun, surveys thy farthest course–
A speck amid the countless starry throng.
John Reade
Lois Elsden 