Invictus *

One of favorite poems goes:-

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 or cried aloud;
under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horrors 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(1849-1903)

* Picked from The Prison Diary (Jeffrey Archer)