# Not Youth Pertains to Me explained — Leaves of Grass

> Chapter companion for Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

## What happens

The speaker disclaims youth, delicacy, and social elegance, acknowledging his awkwardness in learned circles. Yet he affirms his worth through the care he has given to wounded and dying soldiers, and through the songs he composed amid the camp.

## Themes in this chapter

### Comradeship and Love

The speaker's care for wounded soldiers exemplifies deep comradeship and sacrificial love.

### The Poet as Prophet and Unifier

The speaker composes songs in the midst of camp, positioning the poet as a witness and unifier through suffering.

## Character check-ins

### Narrator

The speaker reflects on his own lack of youth and polish, but asserts his value through his service to soldiers and his poetic work.

## Key lines

> 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.

I am not young, refined, or socially graceful; I am out of place in polite and scholarly settings. But I have done what matters: I have cared for wounded and dying soldiers, and in the quiet moments of war, I wrote these poems.

_The speaker contrasts superficial social virtues with the profound, lived experience of nursing soldiers and creating poetry._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se/chapters/not-youth-pertains-to-me
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se/chapters