Poem by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass. 20. By the Roadside. 11. 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.

1. Leaves of Grass. 21. Drum-Taps. 35. How Solemn As One by One [Washington City, 1865]
2. Leaves of Grass. 32. From Noon to Starry Night. 9. Excelsior
3. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 11. The Wallabout Martyrs
4. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 43. The Dying Veteran
5. Leaves of Grass. 5. Calamus. 38. That Shadow My Likeness

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