Leaves of Grass 17
Part of the cluster LEAVES OF GRASS.
17.
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.
Part of the cluster LEAVES OF GRASS.