From
Leaves of Grass, by
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.