Character of a Happy Life
Henry Wotton · 1651
Public domain
From The Golden Treasury, selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. Henry Wotton. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Not tied unto the world by care
Of public fame, or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise
Or vice; Who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:
Who hath his life from rumours freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make accusers great;
Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a well-chosen book or friend;
--This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.