Sunday, January 31, 2010

Day 31

Just saw 'Invictus' tonight with my friend, Lori. And, I know nothing about rugby and very little about apartheid (apparently), but I do know that the poem that kept Mandela sane and gave him hope during the 30 years he spent locked in a cell is so beautiful I just have to share it. Here you go.


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

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