Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Richard Watson Dixon b. 1833

Humanity

THERE is a soul above the soul of each,

A mightier soul, which yet to each belongs:

There is a sound made of all human speech,

And numerous as the concourse of all songs:

And in that soul lives each, in each that soul,

Though all the ages are its lifetime vast;

Each soul that dies, in its most sacred whole

Receiveth life that shall forever last.

And thus forever with a wider span

Humanity o’erarches time and death;

Man can elect the universal man,

And live in life that ends not with his breath:

And gather glory that increase still

Till Time his glass with Death’s last dust shall fill.