Classic Poem

The new leaders are not trumpeted heroes of swell and strut,
They do not come, the general on horseback, the robed priest, the tinseled rhymer, the print monger,
They take their places unobserved, they serve without instructing, their unuttered commands are fulfilled.

Men hear the loud voice, yet do not obey it:
They do not hear the whispered word, yet they obey it:
In the surging mass they discover the meanest to be the leader uttering the divinest words:
The noisy orators are dismissed, the flatterers are cast back in the ranks:
He only is heard whose rebuke is an ascendant note.

We have too long postponed ourselves and acknowledged others,
Now we accept ourselves, we warn the man who rejects himself:
The obstruction to me was myself: I am now shaken free of the old drag,
I elect myself to a throne which has no subjects.

Hail to the silent new leader tenanting unseen the temple which is my heart,
Hail to the entering hosts whose standards express a successful revolt,
Hail to you, to myself, to leaders of men desiring to be left in the crowd.