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ten thousand years before These States, and
 * many times ten thousand years before These
 * States,

Garnered clusters of ages, that men and women like
 * us grew up and travelled their course, and
 * passed on;

What vast-built cities—What orderly republics—
 * What pastoral tribes and nomads,

What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending
 * all others,

What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions, What sort of marriage—What costumes—What
 * physiology and phrenology,

What of liberty and slavery among them—What they thought of death and the Soul, Who were witty and wise—Who beautiful and poetic
 * —Who brutish and undeveloped.

Not a mark, not a record remains—And yet all
 * remains.

O I know that those men and women were not for
 * nothing, any more than we are for nothing, (412)