Spectator competition winners: how to be happy

The latest challenge was to write a poem taking as your first line ‘Happy the man, and happy he alone’, which begins the much-loved eighth stanza of poet-translator Dryden’s rendition of Horace’s Ode 29 from Book III. At a time of year when we traditionally take stock and have a futile stab at self-reinvention, you came up with prescriptions that were witty, smart and wide-ranging. The best appear below and earn their deserving authors £20 each.

Basil Ransome-Davies Happy the man, and happy he alone, Who dwells securely in his comfort zone, Disdaining the temptations of success While relishing the fruits of idleness.

Lightminded indolence preserves the soul From slithering up ambition’s greasy pole While kicking frantically at those beneath, Who curse and fulminate through broken teeth.

Though workaholics and achievers boast Of crushing rivals or who earned the most, Where would their amour-propre be without The telling contrast of the layabout?

Why be the aspirant who strives and strains, And grows a peptic ulcer for his pains, And at the end of day undoes his collar Sighing, ‘another day, another dolour’

Frank McDonald Happy the man, and happy he alone Whose fingers haven’t touched a mobile phone; Who hasn’t tweeted tweets or faced a book Nor ever used a microwave to cook.