The Character of a Happy Life

HOW happy is he born or taught

That serveth not another's will,

Whose armor is his honest thought,

And simple truth his highest skill;

Whose passions not his masters are;

Whose soul is still prepared for death,

Untied unto the world with care

Of princes' grace or vulgar breath;

Who envies none whom chance doth raise,

Or vice; who never understood

The deepest wounds are given by praise,

By rule of state but not of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed,

Whose conscience is his strong retreat,

Whose state can neither flatterers feed

Nor ruins make accusers great;

Who God doth late and early pray

More of his grace than goods to send,

And entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is free from servile bands

Of hope to rise or fear to fall,

Lord of himself, though not of lands,

And having nothing, yet hath all.

Sir Henry Wotton

On his mistress, the Queen of Bohemia

YOU meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light,

You common people of the skies, --

What are you when the sun shall rise?

You curious chanters of the wood

That warble forth dame nature's lays,

Thinking your voices understood

By your weak accents, what's your praise

When Philomel her voice shall raise?

You violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known

Like the proud virgins of the year,

As if the spring were all your own, --

What are you when the rose is blown?

So, when my mistress shall be seen

In form and beauty of her mind,

By virtue first, then choice, a queen

Tell me if she were not designed

Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?

Sir Henry Wotton

Upon the death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife

HE first deceased; she for a little tried

To live without him, liked it not, and died.

Sir Henry Wotton