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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.
| About
William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) |
| Henley was born in Gloucester, England.
He was the first to six children of a barely successful bookseller.
Even at his young age, Henley had endured hardship and sufering. He suffered tuberculosis of the bone in his childhood, leading to amputation of his left leg when he was 16. A poet, critic and editor, Henley and family suffered another blow when his father died, forcing him to migrate to London in search of a job. He managed to work as a freelance writer only to have his health failed him. At 25, he was too ill and was practically living in a hospital at Edinburgh. It was there that he wrote his poems. Apart from his contribution as a poet, he also made other signifact contribution by introducing young writers like Rudyard Kipling, Wells and Yeats to the literary world. In 1902, he fell from a carriage, causing the dormant tuberculosis germs to resurfaced. A year later he died with his wife by his side. His best known poems are "Invictus" and "England, My England". |
