As I am listening to birds chip by the window, reflecting on my role in the world, a poem by William Ernest Henley trembles forth to my mind:
‘Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.’
I love that poem. I love that poem. It summons the human spirit to recall the values at my core. Invictus, meaning “unconquerable” or “undefeated” in Latin, was a poem written while Henley was in the Hospital, being treated for tuberculosis of the bone.
