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You, to whose care so oft I owe

That I'm alive to tell you so.

Very moving. And telling.

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It is a poem full of affection, but not, I think, romantic love. They know that Stella is slowly dying, but there is a flash of charming humour in these lines:

"Nor think on our approaching ills,

And talk of spectacles and pills.

To-morrow will be time enough

To hear such mortifying stuff."

Stella's character sounds intriguing - she is sickly, yet has also helped the sick from what Swift says in this poem. I was wondering how old she was when she died?

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She was 46.

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