Leaves of Grass (1860)
|
| 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 the young woman, |
| 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 killed, 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. |
)
|