The higher Lie characters of the symmetric group Sn arise from the Poincaré-Birkhoff-Witt basis of the free associative algebra. They are indexed by the partitions of n and sum up to the regular character of Sn. A combinatorial description of the multiplicities of their irreducible components is given. As a special case the Kraśkiewicz-Weyman result on the multiplicities of the classical Lie character is obtained.