Thanks be, they're not the hard sort here, in Nazareth House. The gentle sisters
Take on a many helpful task; some of 'em, I misdoubt, are twisters.
I don't suppose our "shag"-fumes seem as sweet to them as to us others;
But—well, they do not treat us here as badged machines, but human brothers.
Stranded, alone, at seventy-five, after a life of luckless labour,
One feels what 'tis to be esteemed not as a nuisance, but a neighbour;
A neighbour in the Good Book's sense; a poor one, and a helpless, truly,
But—not a plague, who'll live too long, if he is cossetted unduly.
Lawks me, the difference! Don't you know the chilly scorn, the silent snubbing
Which makes a man, as is a man, feel he'd far rather take a drubbing?