I SIT AND LOOK OUT

Walt Whitman 1819-92

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

        labourers, 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.

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