I saw the Greatest Man on Earth, <br />Aye, saw him with my proper eyes. <br />A loin-cloth spanned his proper girth, <br />But he was naked otherwise, <br />Excepting for his grey sombrero; <br />And when his domelike head he bared, <br />With reverence I stared and stared, <br />As mummified as any Pharaoh. <br /> <br />He leaned upon a little cane, <br />A big cigar was in his mouth; <br />Through spectacles of yellow stain <br />He gazed and gazed toward the South; <br />And then he dived into the sea, <br />As if to Corsica to swim; <br />His side stroke was so strong and free <br />I could not help but envy him. <br /> <br />A fitter man than I, I said, <br />Although his age is more than mine; <br />And I was strangely comforted <br />To see him battle in the brine. <br />Thought I: We have no cause for sorrow; <br />For one so dynamic to-day <br />Will gird him for the future fray <br />And lead us lion-like to-morrow. <br /> <br />The Greatest Man in all the world <br />Lay lazing like you or me, <br />Within a flimsy bathrobe curled <br />Upon a mattress by the sea: <br />He reached to pat a tou-tou's nose, <br />And scratched his torso now and then, <br />And scribbled with a fountain pen <br />What I assumed was jewelled prose. <br /> <br />And then methought he looked at me, <br />And hailed me with a gesture grand; <br />His fingers made the letter "V," <br />So I, too, went to raise my hand; - <br />When nigh to me the barman glided <br />With liquid gold, and then I knew <br />He merely called for cock-tails two, <br />And so abjectly I subsided. <br /> <br />Yet I have had my moment's glory, <br />A-squatting nigh that Mighty Tory, <br />Proud Hero of our Island Story.<br /><br />Robert William Service<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/reverence-2/
