What an ironic concept that a person can die happy because death is never a joyful experience for anyone. “Eyes, the dark night has closed/I cannot see the cut record/And the silence sounds no worse than cheers/After the earth has blocked the ears” (AE Housman p. 1092 lines. 13 -16) So the first part of this particular quote is about the eyes closed by death who will never live long enough to see their record broken by another athlete. This would be the easiest way for an athlete to die happy, because he would remain in his mind as the best or first person in his sport. The second part of this quote talks about the sounds a deceased person hears, which of course is silence, but when he says "silence sounds no worse than cheering", he means that the athlete will die in silence. remembering the sounds of people cheering for him and since he's dead, the sounds don't matter. If an athlete could die before this record was broken, he would be able to remember the moment when everyone was cheering for him and how great that day was, allowing him to die happily. However, if an athlete lives to see their record broken, they can focus on that moment when the record was broken and die living a life centered on regret. So basically an unbroken record means an unbroken heart and that equals a happy time.