Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand, Some with oval countenances learn’d and calm, Some naked and savage, some like huge collections of insects, Some in tents, herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen, Some prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping, filling barns, Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.

Are those billions of men really gone? Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone? Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us? Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves?

I believe of all those men and women that fill’d the unnamed lands, every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible to us, In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn’d, in life.