While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, <br />And in one day atone for the business of six, <br />In a little Dutch chaise, on a Saturday night, <br />On my left hand my Horace, a W* on my right <br />No memoirs to compose, and no postboy to move, <br />That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love; <br />For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea, <br />Nor the long-winded cant of a dull refugee: <br />This night and the next shall be here, shall be mine, <br />To good or ill fortune the third we resign: <br />Thus scorning the world, and superior to fate, <br />I drive on my car in processional state; <br />So with Phia through Athens Pisistratus rode, <br />Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god. <br />But why should I stories of Athens rehearse, <br />Where people knew love, and were partial to verse; <br />Since none can with justice my pleasure oppose, <br />In Holland half drown'd in interest and prose? <br />By Greece and past ages what need I be tried, <br />When the Hague and the present are both on my side? <br />And is it enough for the joys of the day <br />To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say? <br />When good Vendergoes and his provident Vrow, <br />As they gaze on my triumph, do freely allow <br />That search all the province, you'll find no man dar is <br />So bless'd as the <br />English heer Secretar' <br />is.<br /><br />Matthew Prior<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-secretary/
