Classic Poem

Out of the crowd he came and did his work,
The simple man sufficient, strong and sweet,
Taking his place in the mix, not pushing on beyond or lagging behind,
Letting who pass him who might, letting who rob him who would,
Out of deep shadows emerging when called,
Then back again into the beloved shadows contentedly retiring.
The simple man, the man you meet every day and every where,
A drop in the stream that passes by your door,
The anonymous sap of the earthtree announcing fruit,
Lost in the mingling all, averaged in the human lump,
Creator creating yet never imprinting his song.
Do you know what it means to be very great?
To be very great is to be very simple.
The simplest man on the earth is the greatest man on the earth:
Greatness shrinks from greatness: it disappears off the trail:
It has work to do and does it according to the work.
The singer has a song to sing and sings it according to his song,
He does not sing it according to your ear or your applause.

The men with dirt on their hands, the despised men,
The men of the common trades who go about their work with no thought of fame,
The men who care for the world in its night and its day and yet are unnamed on the list of saviors,
The men who plant in the spring and gather in the fall and are not mentioned in the reports,
The men you would not seat at your table or invite to meet you in equal places,
These are the men of the crowd who save the crowd from you,
These are the men of the crowd who save the crowd from itself,
These men of powerful unheralded intentions,
Clinching the truce of love.

You have taken your lamp and looked for fame and wished to stand alone,
You have worshiped showcase greatness singing its miser wonders,
But greatness does not come dressed up in the compliments and salaams of the multitude
Greatness is in the sufficient man, being sufficient for what he may,
The plainest man is great if he is as big as his task,
The noisiest reputation is contemptible if it fails to fulfil: nothing can save it.

I am not afraid of the crowd,
The crowd will do me no harm—
The crowd will not destroy me, the crowd makes me what I am.
In the sweep of the general purpose I star my personal will
The crowd is the infinite treasury upon which all greatness must draw,
The crowd is the infinite treasury upon which all identity must draw:
Even identity, that proudest relic of battletired ages,
Lost in the hut of the hermit is found in the crowd.