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)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, Life Poems, World Poems, Sadness Poems, Death & Dying Poems, War & Peace Poems, Youth Poems, Woman Poems, Mothers Poems, Children PoemsBased on Keywords: arrogant, meanness, unrequited, convulsive, slights, attempted, negroes, remorseful, seducer, misused, degradations