(Latin: “Unconquered”)
We saw the movie last weekend, Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, Matt Damon as the Captain of the South African Rugby Team at the beginning of Mandela’s Presidency. Enjoyed it.
Below is the text of the poem, Invictus, which had helped inspire Mandela to continue on during his imprisonment, and which he gave to Matt Damon’s character, to help inspire him to win the Rugby World Cup. See it.
- M. Laughlin
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.
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
(1849 - 1902 / Gloucester / England)
 |
Photo by Mark W. Laughlin
|
View from the prison yard, Alcatraz,
fence now eaten away by rust.
No comments:
Post a Comment