A Happy Life
How happy is he born and taughtThat serveth not another’s will;Whose armour is his honest thought,And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his master’s are,Whose soul is still prepared for death,Not tied unto the world with careOf public fame, or private breath.
Words in this poem
- armour n.
- Defensive arms for the body; any clothing or covering worn to protect one's person in battle. [OE. armure, fr. F. armure, OF. armeure, fr. L. armatura. See Armature.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Happy Life is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, A Happy Life, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/a-happy-life.html, id L25275.
Form and metre
A Happy Life is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB taughtA · willB · thoughtA · skillB
- 2 ABAB areA · deathB · careA · breathB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| How happy is he born and taught | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| That serveth not another’s will; | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| Whose armour is his honest thought, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And simple truth his utmost skill! | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| Whose passions not his master’s are, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Whose soul is still prepared for death, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Not tied unto the world with care | 8 | ········ |
| Of public fame, or private breath. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.