Say, ye, oppressed by some fantastic woes,
  Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose;
  Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance
  With timid eye to read the distant glance;
  Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease
  To name the nameless, ever-new, disease;
  Who with mock patience dire complaints endure,
  Which real pain, and that alone, can cure;
  How would ye bear in real pain to lie,
  Despised, neglected, left alone to die? 
  How would, ye bear to draw your latest breath
  Where all that’s wretched paves the way for death?

  Such is that room which one rude beam divides,
  And naked rafters form the sloping sides;
  Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen,
  And lath and mud are all that lie between,
  Save one dull pane that, coarsely patched, gives way
  To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day: 
  Here on a matted flock, with dust o’erspread,
  The drooping wretch reclines his languid head;
  For him no hand the cordial cup applies,
  Or wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes;
  No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile,
  Or promise hope till sickness wears a smile.

  But soon a load and hasty summons calls,
  Shakes the thin roof, and echoes round the walls;
  Anon, a figure enters, quaintly neat,
  All pride and business, bustle and conceit;
  With looks unaltered by these scenes of woe,
  With speed that, entering, speaks his haste to go,
  He bids the gazing throng around him fly,
  And carries fate and physic in his eye: 
  A potent quack, long versed in human ills,
  Who first insults the victim whom he kills;
  Whose murderous hand a drowsy Bench protect,
  And whose most tender mercy is neglect. 
  Paid by the parish for attendance here,
  He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer;
  In haste he seeks the bed where misery lies,
  Impatience marked in his averted eyes;
  And, some habitual queries hurried o’er,
  Without reply he rushes on the door: 
  His drooping patient, long inured to pain,
  And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain;
  He ceases now the feeble help to crave
  Of man; and silent sinks into the grave.

  But ere his death some pious doubts arise,
  Some simple fears, which ‘bold bad’ men despise;
  Fain would he ask the parish-priest to prove
  His title certain to the joys above: 
  For this he sends the murm’ring nurse, who calls
  The holy stranger to these dismal walls: 
  And doth not he, the pious man, appear,
  He, ‘passing rich with forty pounds a year?’
  Ah! no; a shepherd of a different stock,
  And far unlike him, feeds this little flock: 
  A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday’s task
  As much as God or man can fairly ask;
  The rest he gives to loves and labours light,
  To fields the morning, and to feasts the