The Dark Side

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
killed, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
labourers, 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.