The poem in which Swift imagines what will take place upon his death, is full of satiric humour, combined with that vein of bitterness that is never long absent from his writings. His humour is always allied to sadness; his mirth often sounds like a cry of misery. In this poem he pictures his gradual decay, and how his special friends, anticipating the end, will show their tenderness by adding largely to his years: 'He's older than he would be reckoned, And well remembers Charles the Second. He hardly drinks a pint of wine, And that I doubt is no good sign. His stomach too begins to fail, Last year we thought him strong and hale, But now he's quite another thing, I wish he may hold out till Spring.' No enemy can match a friend, Swift adds, in portending a great misfortune: 'He'd rather choose that I should die Than his prediction prove a lie, No one foretells I shall recover, But all agree to give me over.' So he dies, and the first question asked is, 'What has he left and who's his heir?' and when these questions are answered, the Dean is blamed for his bequests. The news spreads to London and is told at Court: 'Kind Lady Suffolk, in the spleen, Runs laughing up to tell the Queen. The Queen so gracious, mild, and good, Cries, "Is he gone? 'tis time he should."' But the loss of the Dean will cause a brief regret to his most intimate friends: 'Poor Pope will grieve a month; and Gay A week; and Arbuthnot a day. St. John himself will scarce forbear To bite his pen and drop a tear. The rest will give a shrug, and cry, "I'm sorry--but we all must die."' Why grieve, indeed, at the death of friends, since no loss is more easy to supply, and in a year the Dean will be forgotten, and his wit be out of date. 'Some country squire to Lintot goes, Inquires for "Swift in Verse and Prose." Says Lintot, "I have heard the name; He died a year ago." "The same." He searches all the shop in vain. "Sir, you may find them in Duck Lane, I sent them with a load of books Last Monday to the pastrycook's. To fancy they could live a year! I find you're but a stranger here. The Dean was famous in his time, And had a kind of knack at rhyme. His way of writing now is past, The town has got a better taste."'