Poem: “The Dark Side” by Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

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American Literature – Children Books – American Poetry – Walt Whitman – Poems by Walt Whitman – Walt Whitman
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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.

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American Literature – Children Books – American Poetry – Walt Whitman – Poems by Walt Whitman – Walt Whitman

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Walt Whitman

The Dark Side

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