I Sit And Look Out

Walt Whitman

   I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
         oppression and shame;
   I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
         themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
   I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
         neglected, gaunt, desperate;
   I see the wife misused by her husband--I see the treacherous seducer
         of young women;
   I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
         hid--I see these sights on the earth;
   I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny--I see martyrs and
         prisoners;
   I observe a famine at sea--I observe the sailors casting lots who
         shall be kill'd, to preserve the lives of the rest;
   I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
         laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
   All these--All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look
         out upon,
   See, hear, and am silent.                                          10

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