Summer 2001
Volume III, Issue II

Poetry

"Invictus"
by William Earnest Henley

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 straight the gate
How charged with punishment the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

Growing up I developed a liking for some of the heroic Victoria poetry. I used to repeat the words of W.E. Henley's poem 'Invictus' like a mantra. It’s a poem about courage and taking responsibility for how we respond to life’s slings and arrows. Henley knew something of strife as a one legged man in an era where disabilities tended to separate you from society (N.B. Henley was the character R.L. Stevenson had in mind when he created Long John Silver in ‘Treasure Island’). Currently this form of stoicism is not fashionable, but there was merit in the thinking of some of those old Brits.