"i sit and look out"
walt whitman

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. this poem has a sad, wistful tone to it. whitman describes all the horrible things that he sees, leaving the reader saddened if not depressed.