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.

This was the poem that kept Nelson Mandela encouraged while in prison for 28 years. He of course was a political prisoner and had been sentenced to life for opposing apartheid. After his release he became president of South Africa and subsequently put and end to apartheid. 

While many people get hung up on the last line as being captain of my soul...I don’t. I take it in the vein that God gives us his spirit which is the unquerable soul. This gives me the ability to be unconquerable.