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. I believe that was not the end of those nations or any person of them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me; Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world, counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world, I suspect I shall meet them there, I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands. Song of Prudence Manhattan’s streets I saunter’d pondering, On Time, Space, Reality--on such as these, and abreast with them Prudence. The last explanation always remains to be made about prudence, Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality. The soul is of itself, All verges to it, all has reference to what ensues, All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence, Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of the direct lifetime, or the hour of death, But the same affects him or her onward afterward through the indirect lifetime. The indirect is just as much as the direct, The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more. Not one word or deed, not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of the onanist, Putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution, But has results beyond death as really as before death. Charity and personal force are the only investments worth any thing. No specification is necessary, all that a male or female does, that is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to him or her, In the unshakable order of the universe and through the whole scope of it forever.