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. _MUSIC._ I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I passed the church; Winds of autumn!--as I walked the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretched sighs, up above, so mournful; I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera--I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartette singing. --Heart of my love! you too I heard, murmuring low, through one of the wrists around my head; Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells last night under my ear. _WHEREFORE?_ O me! O life!--of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish; Of myself for ever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle ever renewed; Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life? _ANSWER_. That you are here--that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse. _QUESTIONABLE._