Thursday, September 4

I am the captain of my soul. I am the master of my fate



September 04, 2014


For my friend Dennis Mallet, and the Irish in Him.
From Don John Wesley, a man of similar strength.



 

And if English poetry may be compared to a broad and luxuriating river … it will be inspiring to observe how its course has been temporarily deflected in the last forty years; how it has swung away from one tendency toward another; and how, for all its bends and twists, it has lost neither its strength nor its nobility.  -  Louis  Untermeyer

Bartleby.com presents the complete 70 volumes of the most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time.


 

 


William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903
 
7. 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         5
  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,  10
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:  15
  I am the captain of my soul.




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