Page:Tale of Paraguay - Southey.djvu/97

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Little he deem'd when with his Indian band He thro' the wilds set forth upon his way, A Poet then unborn, and in a land Which had proscribed his order, should one day Take up from thence his moralizing lay, And shape a song that, with no fiction drest, Should to his worth its grateful tribute pay, And sinking deep in many an English breast, Foster that faith divine that keeps the heart at rest.

Behold him on his way! the breviary Which from his girdle hangs, his only shield; That well-known habit is his panoply, That cross, the only weapon he will wield: By day he bears it for his staff afield, By night it is the pillar of his bed; No other lodging these wild woods can yield Than earth's hard lap, and rushing overhead A canopy of deep and tangled boughs far spread.