History & Politics

Not Youth Pertains to Me

by Walt Whitman 1819–1892

From Leaves of Grass

History & Politics

Not youth pertains to me,
Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk,
Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant,
In the learn’d coterie sitting constrain’d and still, for learning
inures not to me,
Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me--yet there are two or three things
inure to me,
I have nourish’d the wounded and sooth’d many a dying soldier,
And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp,
Composed these songs.

MLA

Whitman, Walt. “Not Youth Pertains to Me.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/whitman/169/.

Chicago

Whitman, Walt. “Not Youth Pertains to Me.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/whitman/169/.

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