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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 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.