C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

William Canton (1845–1926)

HE knows no home; he only knows

Hunger and cold and pain.

The four winds are his bedfellows;

His sleep is dashed with rain.

’Tis naught to him who fails, who thrives:

He neither hopes nor fears;

Some dim primeval impulse drives

His footsteps down the years.

He could not, if he would, forsake

Lone road and field and tree.

Yet, think! it takes a God to make

E’en such a waif as he.

And once a maiden, asked for bread,

Saw, as she gave her dole,

No friendless vagrant, but, instead,

An indefeasible Soul.