Not Youth Pertains To Me

Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)




   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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

24 sec read
423

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDAEAFGH
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 480
Words 76
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 10

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. more…

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