Classic Poem

Poor Poets, who no Money have to give,
By Verse must make them live, who made 'em live;
Since Money's but a poor Return to you,
Who never like your griping Brethren, do;
Whose Patients Lives are but from Dangers freed,
Not as their Veins, but as their Purses bleed;
But you can Life upon the Poor bestow,
Without Return, like Life's First Giver too;
Nay, like the Great Physician of the Soul,
Do Good against our Wills, our Fates controul;
Nay Good, without Thought of Reward, can do,
Can save poor Patients, and their Money too,
A Practice but Particular, in you;
With Bitter Words, no Sow'r Looks, or Morose,
To Patients more offensive than their Dose,
Do you, make yours, their Hopes, or Patience lose;
Nor, like some of your Faculty, do you,
Make your Poor, Weak, Sick Patients undergo,
What others often from their Doctors do;
Who from their Weakness and Ill Humors, more,
Oft suffer, than from all their own before;
In your self you, (what is most hard to do,
By those, whom of your Faculty, we know)
All Evils cure of your Profession too;
Pride's Tympany, Hydropic Avarice,
Against which, few can give themselves Advice;
Unlike them, you make Patients ne'er endure,
Less Danger, Pain, from their Disease, than Cure;
We both serve the same Saving Deity,
The God of Physic, and of Poetry,
By which, Men think to live immortally;
Cou'd I prevent your Death, as mine you do,
You then shou'd live by me, as I by you;
Which, if by any's Art, it cou'd be done,
Cou'd be, by none sure, so sure as your own;
You make Fate on you, you not on it wait,
Thus over-pow'ring it, you grow Fate's Fate;
Not, like your Brethren, its Minister,
Fate's King, and not its Executioner.