This poem by John Dryden (1631-1700), which I know and probably you do as well, came to me by a peculiar route. I had posted a blog about having a good time visiting Sotheby’s, the auctioneers of art and other collectibles, https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2026/06/24/how-to-see-great-art-and-feel-rich-for-an-hour/  and a friend commented on Facebook that she had just visited as well. The next thing she saw on Facebook was Dryden’s poem, and thinking it a good fit with my blog. Shared it with me.

If asked, I wouldn’t have been able to name a poem by Dryden—even though when reminded I know this one. Yet I read this on the poetry Foundation website: “After John Donne and John Milton, John Dryden was the greatest English poet of the 17th century. After William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, he was the greatest playwright. And he has no peer as a writer of prose, especially literary criticism, and as a translator.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-dryden  He’s known as “the father of British criticism.” I wondered if I’m alone in being fond of poetry and yet not reading Dryden, and AI tells me (reassures me?) that I’m not.

Happy the Man seems to be a generally positive poem, celebrating that every moment of joy we have possessed is ours—and ours alone. Even fate and heaven cannot take it away. But the end of the poem “what has been, has been, and I have had my hour” says that the author’s joys have gone: he has had his hour.

The messages of Dryden’s poem makes me think of a quote of Proust that is a favourite of my brother. I can’t find the quote (but will ask my brother), but the general message is that memories of happy times make for the most agonising moments when sad.

My brother told me that the quote was from Dante not Proust. Forgive me, Dante. This is it: “There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.”

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.