Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

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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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