Happy The Man
by John Dryden

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.


A man is happy, and is happy alone
When he claims a day as his own to do as he likes
When he says in feeling of security
Tomorrow I can do anything I want, because I have lived through today
Any joy, whether it be twisted or good-natured, right or wrong
Belongs to me if I have experienced it before, regardless of my future
Heaven itself can not control the past (nor my memory)
But what has happened did happen, and the time to call my own has ended