Sara Teasdale, comp. (1884–1933).
The Answering Voice: One Hundred Love Lyrics by Women. 1917.

The Great Man

Eunice Tietjens

I 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.