Poetry Sunday: Invictus

Nelson Mandela is in hospital again, as he has often been this year, because of a problem with his lungs. Thinking of Mandela reminded me of the acclaimed movie about his life starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon and directed by Clint Eastwood that came out a few years ago, Invictus.  And thinking of the movie naturally led me to thinking of the famous poem which allegedly meant so much to Mr. Mandela during his long imprisonment during the apartheid years in South Africa. The man is a world treasure and so, in honor of him, let's feature that poem today and send him our positive thoughts.

 Invictus
 by William Ernest 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 strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. 

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