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.