In Sickness

WRITTEN IN OCTOBER, 1714     Soon after the author's coming to live in Ireland, upon the Queen's death.[1] - Swift.     'Tis true - then why should I repine     To see my life so fast decline?     But why obscurely here alone,     Where I am neither loved nor known?     My state of health none care to learn;     My life is here no soul's concern:     And those with whom I now converse     Without a tear will tend my hearse.     Removed from kind Arbuthnot's aid,     Who knows his art, but not his trade,     Preferring his regard for me     Before his credit, or his fee.     Some formal visits, looks, and words,     What mere humanity affords,     I meet perhaps from three or four,     From whom I once expected more;     Which those who tend the sick for pay,     Can act as decently as they:     But no obliging, tender friend,     To help at my approaching end.     My life is now a burthen grown     To others, ere it be my own.         Ye formal weepers for the sick,     In your last offices be quick;     And spare my absent friends the grief     To hear, yet give me no relief;     Expired to-day, entomb'd to-morrow,     When known, will save a double sorrow.