Happy the Man Literary Elements

When read in isolation, “Happy the Man” seems to be written in the voice of an unnamed and didactic speaker. The poem is, however, a translation (or as Dryden calls it, a "paraphrase") of Horatian ode 3.29, in which Horace, the speaker, writes to his patron Maecenas.

Heroic couplets, irregular meter

“or rain, or shine”: The speaker uses a weather metaphor to describe life’s vicissitudes. “[R]ain” represents unpleasant times, while “shine” stands for the happier days in life.

“Happy the man, and happy he alone, / He who can call today his own”: alliteration of the "h"
“Be fair, or foul”: alliteration of the “f”
“upon the past has power”: alliteration of the “p”

“Tomorrow do thy worst […] Be fair or foul or rain or shine”: The situational irony in these lines is that the “happy man,” confident and unswerving, is daring life to be harsh to him, rather than asking for luck or happiness as one likely would.
“Not Heaven itself upon the past has power”: Another situational irony, in which Heaven, which one may expect to be all-powerful, is revealed not to have control over the past.

Ode (a Horatian ode translated in Pindaric verse)

Unspecified, abstract

Didactic, optimistic, confident

“the man” (protagonist; one who is confident about, and grateful for, the present) vs. “fate” (antagonist; the ups and downs of life that one cannot foresee or control)

Living in the present vs. living in the past or future; an individual’s determination to be optimistic, confident, and grateful vs. the caprices of life

“Not Heaven itself upon the past has power / But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour”: By evoking the absolute power of “Heaven” and declaring that even its divine authority cannot manipulate the past, the “happy man” asserts with great force that his perceptions of time and life are completely under his own control. In the final line, he declares (with repetitions for emphasis) that he is grateful for what he has and that he will not wallow in what has already happened.

“and I have had my hour”: The word “hour” is an idiomatic synecdoche which refers to one’s time of success or fame (which is often longer than an hour).

“Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today”: The speaker refers to the future (“Tomorrow”) as an entity with agency and the ability to influence the speaker’s experiences. Challenging “Tomorrow” to do its worst to him, the speaker is also making use of apostrophe, i.e. addressing something nonexistent or abstract as though it were an entity capable of feeling and thinking.

“Not Heaven itself upon the past has power”: By stating that the past cannot be controlled, even by the divine, the “happy man” asserts its inaccessibility and invincibility.