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 learninginures not to me,Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me--yet there are two or three thingsinure 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.
Words in this poem
- coterie n.
- A set or circle of persons who meet familiarly, as for social, literary, or other purposes; a clique. [F., prob. from OF. coterie servile tenure, fr. colier cotter; of German origin. See 1st Cot.]
- inure v. t.
- To apply in use; to train; to discipline; to use or accustom till use gives little or no pain or inconvenience; to harden; to habituate; to practice habitually. [From pref. in- in + ure use, work. See Ure use, practice, Opera, and cf. Manure.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Not Youth Pertains to Me is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, Not Youth Pertains to Me, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/not-youth-pertains-to-me.html, id L03962.
Form and metre
Not Youth Pertains to Me is 10 lines in a single stanza. 78% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.8 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 A---A-A--- meA · talk · elegant · learning · meA · things · meA · soldier · camp · songs
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Not youth pertains to me, | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk, | 14 | ······/˘˘/···· |
| Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant, | 15 | /˘··/˘/˘·/˘·/˘˘ |
| In the learn’d coterie sitting constrain’d and still, for learning | 15 | ···/˘˘/˘˘/···/˘ |
| inures not to me, | 5 | ˘/··· |
| Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me--yet there are two or three things | 16 | /˘/˘˘/·········· |
| inure to me, | 4 | ˘/·· |
| I have nourish’d the wounded and sooth’d many a dying soldier, | 16 | ··/˘·/˘··/˘·/˘/˘ |
| And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp, | 13 | ··/˘˘/˘······ |
| Composed these songs. | 4 | ˘/·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.