Fishtail Mountain, Annarpurna Region Trekking Trail, Nepal, backpacking lonely planet, Dec 2006.
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 blundgeonings 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 punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I'm fascinated by the unbroken spirit of the poet, William Ernest Henley. It could have resonated an ignorance of God, or even complete disatisfaction with the Almighty, for as a child he suffered the amputation of a foot. 'Invictus' is latin for 'unconquerable'.Being ill for much of his life, he wrote this during a two-year spell in an infirmary. Henley was a great friend of Robert Louis Stevenson and the character of Long John Silver may even be based on him. This is a gem of my reading from The Dangerous Book For Boys, Australian Edition by Conn and Hal Iggulden.
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 blundgeonings 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 punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I'm fascinated by the unbroken spirit of the poet, William Ernest Henley. It could have resonated an ignorance of God, or even complete disatisfaction with the Almighty, for as a child he suffered the amputation of a foot. 'Invictus' is latin for 'unconquerable'.Being ill for much of his life, he wrote this during a two-year spell in an infirmary. Henley was a great friend of Robert Louis Stevenson and the character of Long John Silver may even be based on him. This is a gem of my reading from The Dangerous Book For Boys, Australian Edition by Conn and Hal Iggulden.
