Invictus

from conan - Wednesday, April 11, 2007
accessed 865 times

I didn't write this, and I don't know why I'm posting it as I'm sure most members of this site have read it hundreds of times. It is one of my favorite poems of all times though, and I always felt a kinship with the man I imagined telling it, even when this poem was used as an example of what I should strive NOT to be. Anyways, if anyone hasn't read this yet, enjoy William Ernest Henley's 'Invictus'

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.