Life and Death
Many a man would die for wife and children, for faith, for country. But would he live for them? That, often, is the more heroic course—and the more sensible. A rich man was hiring a driver for his carriage. He asked each applicant how close he could drive to a precipice without toppling over. “One foot,” “Six inches,” “Three inches,” ran the replies. But an Irishman declared, “Faith, and I’d keep as far away from the place as I could.” “Consider yourself employed,” was the rich man’s comment.
So he died for his faith. That is fine—
More than most of us do.
But stay, can you add to that line
That he lived for it, too?
In death he bore witness at last
As a martyr to truth.
Did his life do the same in the past
From the days of his youth?
It is easy to die. Men have died
For a wish or a whim—
From bravado or passion or pride.
Was it harder for him?
But to live: every day to live out
All the truth that he dreamt,
While his friends met his conduct with doubt,
And the world with contempt—
Was it thus that he plodded ahead,
Never turning aside?
Then we’ll talk of the life that he led—
Never mind how he died.
Ernest H. Crosby
From “Swords and Ploughshares.”