Invictus

I was just reading about the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley. (It's below)

I first came across it when I was in school in Ireland at about the age of 16... in English Literature class. I loved the poem back then... mostly because as a 16 year old boy, hard core poems about "bludgeoning" and "blood" go over well.

I didn't know any of the history of the poem.

Briefly:

1. Henley wrote it in 1875 when he was 26 and it was about losing his leg below the knee to tuberculosis.

2. Nelson Mandela kept it on a scrap of paper in his cell during his 27 year incarceration.

3. In the recent movie, Invictus, Mandela (Morgan Freeman) gives the captain of the South African rugby squad (Matt Damon) a copy of the poem before the final game of the 1995 World Cup in which they are to face the heavily favoured New Zealand All Blacks. The Springboks (South Africans) go on to win.

4. In reality Mandela gave the Springbok captain (Francois Pienaar) an excerpt from The Man in the Arena speech by Theodore Roosevelt. This quote has always been one of my favourites - see it on the sidebar.

5. Invictus is latin for unconquered.

For these reasons Invictus has now joined the excerpt from Man in the Arena as my favourite pieces of literature. What amazing stories and coincidences.

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.

- William Ernest Henley, 1875

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