I Sit and Look Out

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 the wife misused by her husband. I see the treacherous 
          seducer of young women.

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny. I see  
         martyrs and prisoners,

I observed the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon  
         laborers, the poor, negroes, and the like.

All these— all the meanness and agony without end I, sitting look out upon,
          See, hear, and am silent.


Written by Walt Whitman
Published in Leaves of Grass 1860 edition

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