Classic Poem

Everybody leads you to the great man,
But when you get near greatness you find it is much like everything else.
When you weigh greatness in a scale it comes still to a man—that is all,
When you put that which is small in a scale that too is a man and no less.
Greatness is commonest in the everyday paths.
When the rat ran to his hole you did not say it was great,
But when the sun dropt below the horizon west that you called great.

After all the great of the earth had passed and passed again while everybody saw and hurrahed,
Then came the greatest of the earth and passed and passed again unseen and unsaluted:
Will you always be blind? Will you always be deaf and dumb?