Happy New Year All

Have fun..try and enjoy life..and hope you have a better year than this one :)

Invictus

This is a poem by William Ernest Henley that I recently read. I've been thoroughly impressed, inspired and affected by it. This was a poem that Nelson Mandela allegedly read to himself during the 30 years of his incarceration at Robben Island. Even without that, it is an amazing piece of work.

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 can imagine this giving some down-trodden souls a lift, and inspiring many to achieve more.