How did he live?

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 Crosby