Robert Winkworth Norwood, a minister and poet, was born in New Ross, Lunenberg County, Nova Scotia, on 27 March 1874, the son of the Reverend Joseph and Edith Harding Norwood. The father, who had run away from his home in Boston at the age of eight and gone to sea, was a soldier in the American Civil War and a missionary to West Africa before he became rector of Christ Church in New Ross, then a tiny village surrounded by forest. The son inherited both his father's adventurous spirit and clerical calling. He was educated at Coaticook Academy and Bishop's College in Quebec, King's College in Nova Scotia, and Columbia University. Norwood was encouraged in poetry by his professor of English at King's, Charles G. D. Roberts, and given the freedom of Roberts's home and library. Upon graduation from King's, Norwood and his roommate, Charles Vernon, published a student chapbook...