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Leaves of Grass (1867)
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NOT YOUTH PERTAINS TO ME.
| NOT youth pertains to me, |
| Nor delicatesse—I cannot beguile the time with talk; |
| Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant; |
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In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still—for
learning inures not to me; |
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Beauty, knowledge, fortune, inure not to me—yet
there are two things inure to me; |
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I have nourish'd the wounded, and sooth'd many a
dying soldier; |
| And at intervals I have strung together a few songs, |
| Fit for war, and the life of the camp. |