I am Invictus...

I love a good poem. They're terribly underrated nowadays. It's like people have forgotten what a good poem can do for your and your soul. Some infuse love while others ooze inspiration. Post watching the amazing Invictus, after which my admiration for Nelson Mandela, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood and Matt Damon increased and how, I felt a slight inclination to read the poem by William Ernest Henley. And its not a poem you read once and forget. It lingers. You can't help but sit and attempt to dissect or put into perspective what the poet was trying to say. Personally, it applies to the readers life depending on their current frame of mind, circumstances and so on, but even then after reading the poem, you are charged with emotion and raring to go.

Invictus - William Ernest Henley

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.

The word "invictus" itself is Latin for "undefeated". The poem applies to my life in a number of ways. Definitely has become of my favorites and I will look to it when I feel life is misbehaving.