Invictus

The sun cut sharply across one corner of the room. The young man on the cot gazed at the brightness for a moment, then turned and faced the wall. He had been in the Edinburgh Infirmary nearly two years now, while Dr. Lister tried desperately to save his remaining foot. He had been subjected to so many operations he had lost count, twenty at least, in the last twenty months! But he was not beaten yet.

He turned and faced the sun again, and smiled. Words rang through his mind, sang through his mind: “In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.”

The man on the cot was William Ernest Henley. Few in this world are called upon to endure all he had in his brief twenty-five years. He had suffered since childhood from an agonizing tubercular infection of the bones, for which the usual victorian remedy was amputation. One foot had already been removed, and the other was threatened. It was in the hope of avoiding a second amputation that he had submitted to this long, lonely siege on a hospital cot. Dr. Joseph Lister had a new method of treating infections which he thought might save young Henley’s foot, and keep him from becoming a complete cripple.

Illness, poverty, pain, and suffering … endless treatments and operations testing human courage to its limits: that had been William Henley’s life for almost as far back as he could remember. “But I won’t give up!” he promised himself, smiling on his hospital cot. “I won’t give up, no matter what happens. I thank God for my unconquerable soul!”

Out of the pain and suffering of his own personal life, out of the courage, and faith and fortitude with which he accepted the cruel blows of fate, came “Invictus” – one of the most emotionally powerful and uplifting poems ever written: Invictus.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods maybe

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.

By William Ernest Henley

Today in English-speaking schools all over the world, children learn to memorize and recite this inspiring poem. Though they may not entirely understand the meaning of its words, they feel the unmistakable impact of its force and power. And to countless thousands of men and women faced with sorrow, pain, or fear, it has brought the courage to accept the blows of fate, to triumph over physical handicaps, and carry on with head unbowed.

William Henley wrote many poems in his lifetime; but on the strength of “Invictus” alone he has won immortality, for born of years of struggle in the shadow of death, profoundly personal in its sources, arising literally “out of the night,” “Invictus” has brought new hope and the will to live to many who nearly lost their way, many who were on the point of giving up.

“Invictus” belongs to mankind, now and for all the ages to come. Of all the poems ever written, this one perhaps best typifies man’s rich inspirational heritage.

From LFML