| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | Happy He | | Anonymous |
| | | HAPPY he | |
| Who, to sweet home retired, | |
| Shuns glory so admired; | |
| And to himself lives free! | |
| Whilst he who strives, with pride, to climb the skies, | 5 |
| Falls down, with foul disgrace, before he rise! | |
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| Let who will | |
| The Active Life commend; | |
| And all his travails bend | |
| Earth with his fame to fill! | 10 |
| Such fame, so forced, at last dies with his death; | |
| Which life maintained by others’ idle breath! | |
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| My delights | |
| To dearest home confined, | |
| Shall there make good my mind; | 15 |
| Not awed with Fortune’s spites! | |
| High trees, heaven blasts! Winds shake and honours fell; | |
| When lowly plants, long time in safety dwell. | |
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| All I can, | |
| My worldly strife shall be, | 20 |
| They, one day, say of me, | |
| ‘He died a good old man!’ | |
| On his sad soul a heavy burden lies, | |
| Who, known to all, unknown to himself, dies! | | | | |
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