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.

A good friend introduced this poem to me, and I think it perfectly summarizes the individualist sense of life. In a succint and powerful few stanzas, Henley describes more about the soul of a man as it should be than the many novels and non-fiction volumes on the subject of individualism, forcing one to recognize such talent that only these stirring words drive me to jealousy, making me wish I had written it myself.