With music strong I come, ...

With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums, I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer\'d and slain persons. Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? 
 I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won. I beat and pound for the dead, I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.
With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums, I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons. Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won. I beat and pound for the dead, I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

Quotes from the same author

Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.
In the faces of men and women, I see God.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of a man.
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.
Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem.