Invictus

William Ernest Henley

Crippled by tuberculosis from his boyhood years, W E Henley was rendered helpless and incapacitated at an early age...

Despite his predicament, W E Henley wrote with gusto from his hospital bed...

His best work, Invictus, a death bed affirmation of his atheism succeeded in motivating Nelson Mandela during his twenty seven years of exile at Robben Island...

My favourite poem...

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...