The Great Man Poem by Eunice Tietjens

CANNOT always feel his greatness.
Sometimes he walks beside me, step by step,
And paces slowly in the ways—
The simple, wingless ways
That my thoughts tread. He gossips with me then,
And finds it good;
Not as an eagle might, his great wings folded, be content
To walk a little, knowing it his choice,
But as a simple man,
My friend.
And I forget.

Then suddenly a call floats down
From the clear airy spaces,
The great keen, lonely heights of being.
And he who was my comrade hears the call
And rises from my side, and soars,
Deep-chanting, to the heights.
Then I remember.
And my upward gaze goes with him, and I see
Far off against the sky
The glint of golden sunlight on his wings.