The Full Text of “The Character of a Happy Life”
1How happy is he born and taught
2That serveth not another's will;
3Whose armour is his honest thought,
4And simple truth his utmost skill!
5Whose passions not his masters are;
6Whose soul is still prepared for death,
7Untied unto the world by care
8Of public fame or private breath;
9Who envies none that chance doth raise,
10Nor vice; who never understood
11How deepest wounds are given by praise;
12Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
13Who hath his life from rumours freed;
14Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
15Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
16Nor ruin make oppressors great;
17Who God doth late and early pray
18More of His grace than gifts to lend;
19And entertains the harmless day
20With a religious book or friend;
21—This man is freed from servile bands
22Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
23Lord of himself, though not of lands,
24And having nothing, yet hath all.
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“The Character of a Happy Life” Introduction
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"The Character of a Happy Life" is 17th-century English poet Sir Henry Wotton's bracing advice to men trying to make their way in a corrupt world. The truly happy man, Wotton advises, is he who turns away from the fickle, gossipy, power-hungry world to follow his own conscience. The poem was first printed after Wotton's death in the 1672 collection Reliquiae Wottonianae.
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“The Character of a Happy Life” Summary
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How lucky is the kind of guy who's taught not to do what other people tell him; who's defended by his own honesty and skilled in telling the truth?
Who's not overwhelmed by his own strong feelings and who's always spiritually ready to die, since he's not attached to the world's praise or its cruel gossip?
Who doesn't admire people who gain power by accident or by scheming; who doesn't understand why people fall into traps in pursuit of praise; who doesn't just blindly agree with whoever's in power, but follows his own conscience?
Who stays clear of gossip; who knows he can take refuge in his own clean conscience; who can't be flattered when he's powerful, and who can't be downtrodden when he's weak?
Who prays to God all day long, asking not for favors, but for God to do what God wills; who spends his blameless time reading a holy book or hanging out with a friend?
This kind of person isn't a servant to his desire to get ahead in the world—or to his fear of failure. He may not be wealthy and powerful, but he's the master of himself—and even when he has nothing, he has everything.
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“The Character of a Happy Life” Themes
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Independence and Virtue
In “The Character of a Happy Life,” a speaker describes what it takes for a person (and more specifically, a man) to live well. For this speaker, being happy means being independent, accountable only to oneself and to God. Those who get too invested in other people’s opinions only end up squabbling for power and getting hurt by the ups and downs of fortune. But those who practice truthfulness, humility, piety, and self-reliance earn a steady and “happy life.”
The first and most important virtue a man must have, the speaker suggests, is independence: knowing that it’s no good to knock himself out trying to satisfy “another’s will,” to worm his way into power through “flatter[y],” or to obey the “rules of state” (that is, the laws handed down by the powerful) when he knows they contradict the “rules of good.” In other words, a truly happy man doesn’t strive for power at the expense of his “conscience.” His own moral compass must be his guide in everything, and he mustn’t give it up for any reason.
That’s because the world is a fickle place. Fortune, the speaker hints, changes all the time; the same person who’s being “flatter[ed]” for his wealth and power today may be “ruin[ed]” tomorrow. Those who get caught up in struggles for earthly power find themselves at the mercy of fate—and of unscrupulous people who are themselves just striving for “public fame” at any cost.
The only constant a man can put his trust in, the speaker thus concludes, is himself—so long as he’s also following the will of God. If a man remembers to pray “late and early,” keeping his eyes on God rather than the world, then he can also count on his own God-guided moral compass to steer him right. A person who has such a sturdy, independent sense of self-reliance and self-mastery will always be the “lord of himself,” no matter whether he’s rich or poor, powerful or obscure.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Character of a Happy Life”
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Lines 1-4
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!"The Character of a Happy Life" is a 17th-century poetic instruction manual for people—or, more specifically, for men—who want to live good lives. The poem's speaker, readers can assume, is a voice for the author himself: Sir Henry Wotton, a writer and diplomat who served in the court of King James I. His experience in the cutthroat world of 17th-century politics, as readers will see, seems to have shaped his advice.
As the poem begins, remember that "happy," in Wotton's time, could mean "lucky" as well as "contented and cheerful." The speaker's tone is thus both encouraging and admiring in his first exclamation:
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;In other words, the guy who's raised not to blindly do what other people want is both living a good life and a fortunate one. Such behavior isn't instinctive: it must be "taught." The poem thus sets out to teach a lesson in independence, or at least to lay out the syllabus for such a course.
Living well, the speaker goes on, isn't just about being taught well. It's also about fighting for what's right. Take a look at the metaphor in the closing lines of this stanza:
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!Presenting internal honesty as armor, the speaker suggests that staying honest (with oneself as well as with other people) is going to be a battle. The world doesn't reward honesty.
For that matter, the speaker says, it takes "skill" to stick to the "simple truth." Simple the truth may be, but it's not easy to hang onto.
The beginning of the poem, then, paints a picture not just of an independent person with a strong moral compass, but of a world full of spineless liars. Being weak this way, the speaker implies, is a lot easier than living the happy life he advises.
The form the speaker picks here thus aims to make his advice as memorable as possible:
- The poem is written in regular quatrains (four-line stanzas) of bouncy iambic tetrameter. That means each line uses four iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm, as in "Whose arm- | our is | his hon- | est thought."
- Each of the poem's six stanzas uses a straightforward, singsongy ABAB rhyme scheme.
This form creates a lively, simple, easily memorized poem—perfect for repeating to yourself when tempted to "serve[] another's will."
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Lines 5-8
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;
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Lines 9-12
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; -
Lines 13-16
Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great; -
Lines 17-20
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; -
Lines 21-24
—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.
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“The Character of a Happy Life” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Metaphor
The speaker's metaphors frame self-reliance as a shield or a fortress—and unhealthy attachments to the world as chains.
The only "armour" a happy man needs, the speaker declares in the first stanza, is his "honest thought." This is the first of a number of military metaphors that present the speaker's ideal man as a well-armed knight. Besides that armor, such a person also has a "strong retreat" (that is, a safe house or fortress) in his "conscience." Defended by his honesty and his inner compass, he's safe from the "deepest wounds" of "praise"—that is, he can't be swayed (and hurt) by other people's opinions, good or bad.
By putting all these ideas in military terms, the speaker suggests that living a happy and virtuous life means fighting a hard battle! You can't just wander carefree through the world if you want to live well, the speaker observes: you have to stay on your guard.
Otherwise, you'll find yourself trapped. Getting too attached to worldly success (or to what other people think of you) is like being "[]tied unto the world," trapped in the "bands" (or ropes) of fickle fortune. The one way to get "untied," this speaker feels, is to rely only on yourself and God.
The speaker's metaphors all get at one central idea: to live independently is a hard battle, but it's better than being trapped in the world's snares.
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
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Anaphora
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Alliteration
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Juxtaposition
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“The Character of a Happy Life” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Serveth
- Utmost
- Passions
- Still
- Private breath
- None that chance doth raise
- Doth
- Rules of state
- Hath
- Retreat
- Servile
- Bands
Serveth-
An old-fashioned way of saying "serves."
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Character of a Happy Life”
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Form
"The Character of a Happy Life" is written in six jaunty quatrains (four-line stanzas). A bouncy meter and singsong rhyme scheme make the poem feel energetic and memorable—useful qualities for a poem full of life advice. This poem of instruction is meant to be a touchstone for a 17th-century gentleman to carry around with him, a simple way to remind himself how he wants to behave.
Readers might compare this poem with Rudyard Kipling's "If—," a 19th-century variation on the same theme. Both of these poems are about being a virtuous, independent man, and both are meant to present bracing advice in a lively form.
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Meter
"The Character of a Happy Life" is written in iambic tetrameter. That means that each of its lines is built from four iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm. Here's how that sounds in the first two lines:
How hap- | py is | he born | and taught
That serv- | eth not | ano- | ther's will;The poem sticks to this regular, bouncy meter a lot more strictly than many iambic poems do, giving the speaker's advice plenty of energetic momentum. But there's one important variation right at the end of the poem. Listen to the changed meter in line 23, the next-to-last line:
Lord of | himself, | though not | of lands,
Here, the speaker starts the line off with a trochee, the opposite of an iamb, with a DUM-da rhythm. That gives this summation of what a happy man should care about—his independence and self-respect, not his wealth or status—a little extra kick.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poem's rhyme scheme runs like this:
ABAB
This is a straightforward, unpretentious pattern, meant to be memorable and lively rather than elegant or complex. That suits this poem's similarly straightforward tone and sensible advice. "The Character of a Happy Life" is meant to work as an easily recalled touchstone, reminding its readers that happiness lies in self-respect and self-mastery. (Perhaps the speaker imagines readers calling a few verses to mind when they're tempted to indulge in some gossip or backstabbing...)
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“The Character of a Happy Life” Speaker
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The poem has no clearly identified speaker, but it does have a perspective—one that readers can assume is Henry Wotton's own. According to the poem's speaker, a "happy life" is one of stalwart self-reliance, calm religious faith, and honesty. He feels that happy people (and, more specifically, happy men) don't rely on external markers of success like praise and wealth. They pay more attention to the "rules of good" than to the dictates of politically powerful people, obeying their consciences over unjust law.
The speaker's focus on independence and self-mastery might have been born from Wotton's time as a diplomat. In service to King James I of England, he was exposed to plenty of courtly power-grubbing and backstabbing—activities the speaker shows a marked distaste for here.
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“The Character of a Happy Life” Setting
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There's no explicit setting in this poem, but the kind of "happy life" the speaker advises is grounded in the ideals of Wotton's own time and place: England around the turn of the 17th century. While the speaker's advice to rely on one's own conscience and develop self-respect could come from any time (see also: Rudyard Kipling's "If—", written some centuries later), his particular examples of bad behavior suggests exactly what annoyed Sir Henry Wotton about the world he lived in. The speaker's distaste for political ladder-climbing, flattery, and fame-seeking comes straight out of the dangerous courts of Europe. His insistence that happy people are sure to spend plenty of time in prayer, preparing their souls to meet their maker, is similarly rooted in his predominantly Christian culture.
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Character of a Happy Life”
Literary Context
Lord Henry Wotton (1568-1639) was an English poet, diplomat, and courtier. A friend of John Donne's, he likewise served in the court of James I of England—though, as this poem's indirect critique of backstabbing courtiers suggests, not always happily. Famously (and cynically), he once remarked that an ambassador is an honest gentleman sent abroad to lie for the good of his country."
Like many courtier-poets of his time (Donne included), Wotton didn't publish his poetry during his lifetime. Many writers around the turn of the 17th century felt that publication was a little tacky; courtiers were meant to circulate their poetry privately among each other, not to print it and share it with the wide world. This poem thus didn't appear in print until some years after Wotton's death, when some of his admirers put together a collection called Reliquiae Wottonianae—in other words, a book of Wotton's literary "relics" or remains, alongside a few works by other writers.
After its publication, "The Character of a Happy Life," with its straightforward, bracing advice and its bouncy rhythm, became a famous and popular poem—rather like a 17th-century version of Rudyard Kipling's "If—".
Historical Context
Henry Wotton lived and wrote in an era of transition. When he was born, Elizabeth I was still on the throne; as an adult, he served in the very different court of James I.
Elizabeth's reign was a dangerous but glamorous period in English history. After a rocky start, Elizabeth stabilized an England thrown into turmoil by religious schism: her father Henry VIII's decision to split from the Pope and found his own national Church of England led to generations of conflict and bloodshed between English Protestants and Catholic loyalists. Elizabeth's political skill, her dramatic military victories against the Spanish, and her canny decision to present herself as an almost supernatural, Artemis-like "Virgin Queen" all helped to create a new sense of English national identity in the midst of chaos.
As a "Virgin Queen," though, she died without children and was instead succeeded by her cousin James. Already James VI of Scotland, he became James I of England when he took the English throne in 1603. Wotton got into James's good graces just before James became King of England: it was he who warned James of a plot to poison him. James duly knighted Wotton for his services.
The new king's court was worldly, intellectual, and superstitious all at once: James was pious in a rather paranoid way, anxious about demons and witches. But he was also a great patron of the arts and sciences, and Wotton is only one of many poets who flourished in his employ.
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More “The Character of a Happy Life” Resources
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External Resources
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A Brief Biography — Learn more about Wotton's life and work.
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The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.
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Reliquiae Wottonianae — Take a look at Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, the posthumous book in which this poem was first published.
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A Portrait of Wotton — Admire a friendly-looking portrait of Wotton from the National Portrait Gallery in London. Wotton is the very picture of a respectable 17th-century gentleman here.
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