Answer:
In the poem "I Sit and Look Out" by Walt Whitman, he talks about the cruelty and oppression among humans. Whitman elaborates on certain images of oppression such as seeing "wives misused by her husband," and "the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny". Although Whitman scrutinizes the sins of human beings such as jealousy and arrogance, near the end of the poem he reveals that being silent and being an onlooker among the oppression that occurs is the greatest sin of all. In the lines "All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon, see, hear, and am silent" Whitman is saying that even though he sees all these things happening in the world, he simply watches instead of doing the right thing.
In the poem First they came for..." by Martin Niemöller talks about how Adolf Hitler along with the Nazis went after and killed innocent people during the Nazi rule.The theme of this poem is that silence is deadly, and the poem clearly illustrates that. In the lines "Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me" Niemöller is saying that because he did not speak out against the innocent killing of people such as Jews and Socialists, there was no one left to save him or speak out against him being killed. The same message of the theme is illustrated in the poem "I Sit and Look Out" by Walt Whitman because he explains that him being a bystander and silent among all the oppression he's seen and heard has led them to keep happening.
To conclude, both of the poems convey the message to readers that standing by and not doing the right thing, hurts everyone and is the most cruel thing we can do.
Niemöller's words in "First they came for..." repeat the theme developed in "I Sit and Look Out" by Walt Whitman by revealing the danger of keeping silent at the face of oppression and suffering.
Let's further buttress it in the following essay.
In "First They Came", Niemöller reveals his attitude of not speaking out when the Nazis came to power and subsequent wiping out of their targets, group by group.
"First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out" (Niemöller)
After stating the various groups they came for and his inability to speak out, he finally ended by stating that when they eventually came for him, no one was left to speak out for him.
"Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me" (Niemöller).
We see the same theme repeated in Whitman's "I Sit and Look Out".
In his poem, the poet reveals that he sits and looks out upon all the sorrows and sufferings of the world.
"I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame" (Whitman).
Whitman also reveals that having seen and heard all that humans were passing through, he kept silent.
"All these - all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look upon, See, hear, and am silent" (Whitman).
Thus, the two poems reveals that silence at the face of oppression, tyranny and suffering is dangerous and can make such evil to escalate.
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