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 k**'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.