How He Died
How He Died
Original Text
Plain Talk in Psalm and Parable. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1899. 3rd edn.: London, F.R. Henderson, 1901.
1So he died for his faith. That is fine.
2 More than most of us do.
3But stay; can you add to that line
4 That he lived for it too?
5It is easy to die. Men have died
6 For a wish or a whim --
7From bravado, from passion or pride;
8 Was it harder for him?
9But to live; every day to live out
10 All the truth that he dreamt,
11While his friends met his conduct with doubt,
12 And the world with contempt --
13Was it thus that he plodded ahead,
14 Never turning aside?
15Then we'll talk of the life that he led,
16 Never mind how he died.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
Rhyme
Form