INVICTUS

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.

 

This is a Poem 'Invictus' (Unconquered, Undefeated) by William Henley. Great South African Leader Nelson Mandela (Madiba) was inspired by the poem, and had it written on a scrap of paper on his prison cell while he was incarcerated for 27 years on Robben Island.

 

"Invictus" is a short poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903). At the age of 12, Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone.

A few years later the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee.

In 1867 he successfully passed the Oxford local examination as a senior student.

In 1875 he wrote the "Invictus" poem from a hospital bed. It was first published in 1888 in Henley's Book of Verses, where it was the fourth in a series of poems entitled Life and Death (Echoes).

It originally bore no title. The familiar title "Invictus" (Latin for "unconquered"⁾ was added by Arthur Quiller-Couch when he included the poem in The Oxford Book of English Verse (1900)

Despite his disability, Henley survived with one foot intact and led an active life until the age of 53.