[1042] I Sit and Look Out

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.

    -- Walt Whitman