Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639)

The Character of a Happy Life

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,

Untied unto the world by care

Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise,

Nor 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 oppressors great;

Who God doth late and early pray

More of his grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a religious 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.