He forgot his own life for others,
Himself to his neighbor lending.
Found the Lord in his suffering brothers,
And not in the clouds descending.

And he saw, ere his eye was darkened,
The sheaves of the harvest-bringing;
And knew, while his ear yet hearkened,
The voice of the reapers singing.

Never rode to the wrong's redressing
A worthier paladin.
He has heard the Master's blessing,
"Good and faithful, enter in!"

--John Greenleaf Whittier.

THE CHARGE

They outtalked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot and pass'd,
Hotly charged--and sank at last.
Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall!

--Matthew Arnold.

THE REFORMER

Before the monstrous wrong he sets him down--
One man against a stone-walled city of sin.
For centuries those walls have been abuilding;
Smooth porphyry, they slope and coldly glass
The flying storm and wheeling sun. No chink,
No crevice, lets the thinnest arrow in.
He fights alone, and from the cloudy ramparts
A thousand evil faces gibe and jeer him.
Let him lie down and die: what is the right,
And where is justice, in a world like this?
But by and by earth shakes herself, impatient;
And down, in one great roar of ruin, crash
Watch-tower and citadel and battlements.
When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier
Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars.

--Edward Rowland Sill.

LIFE AND DEATH

So he died for his faith. That is fine--
More than most of us do.
But, say, can you add to that line
That he lived for it, too?
In his 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 lived.
Never mind how he died.

--Ernest Crosby.

THE RED PLANET