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 famine at sea,
I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be killed 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 back, look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.



~Walt Whitman