O beautiful for heroes prov’d

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved,

And mercy more than life.

America! America!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness,

And ev’ry gain divine.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet

Whose stern impassion’d stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness.

America! America!

God mend thine ev’ry flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law.

I took this photo on Saturday during the 1809s Day parade through Ringgold, Georgia.

It was not death, for I stood up,

And all the dead lie down.

It was not night, for all the bells

Put out their tongues for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh

I felt siroccos crawl,

Nor fire, for just my marble feet

Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all,

The figures I have seen

Set orderly for burial

Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven

And fitted to a frame

And could not breathe without a key,

And ’twas like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped

And space stares all around,

Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,

Repeal the beating ground;

But most like chaos, stopless, cool,

Without a chance, or spar,

Or even a report of land

To justify despair.

Emily Dickinson’s “It Was Not Death”, first published in 1891.