University of Virginia Library

I SET 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 arro-
     gant 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.