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."
ON BEING READY
At nightfall after bloody Antietam Lee's army, outnumbered and exhausted, lay with the Potomac at its back. So serious was the situation that all the subordinate officers advised retreat. But Lee, though too maimed to attack, would not leave the field save of his own volition. "If McClellan wants a battle," he declared, "he can have it." McClellan hesitated, and through the whole of the next day kept his great army idle. The effect upon the morale of the two forces, and the two governments, can be imagined.
The man who is there with the wallop and punch
The one who is trained to the minute,
May well be around when the trouble begins,
But you seldom will find he is in it;
For they let him alone when they know he is there
For any set part in the ramble,
To pick out the one who is shrinking and soft
And not quite attuned to the scramble.