Leaves of Grass 5
Part of the cluster LEAVES OF GRASS.
5.
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 an-
guish 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 cast-
ing lots who shall be kill'd, to preserve the
lives of the rest; I observe the slights and degradations cast by arro-
gant 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.
Part of the cluster LEAVES OF GRASS.