NOT youth pertains to me, <br /> Nor delicatesse--I cannot beguile the time with talk; <br /> Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant; <br /> In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still--for learning. <br /> inures not to me; <br /> Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me--yet there are two or three things <br /> inure to me; <br /> I have nourish'd the wounded, and sooth'd many a dying soldier, <br /> And at intervals, waiting, or in the midst of camp, <br /> Composed these songs.<br /><br />Walt Whitman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/not-youth-pertains-to-me/
