Not Youth Pertains to Me

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; In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still—for
learning inures not to me; Beauty, knowledge, fortune, inure not to me—yet
there are two things inure to me; 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.