INVICTUS

Yesterday I saw the movie "Invictus". It was GREAT, and I suggest that ALL of you go out and see it ASAP!
Here is the poem that Nelson Mandela used while he was in Robben Island prison, to keep himself sane, and survive. It was a centrepieve of the movie, and obviously the title of it, too.

I like it for many reasons, and personally I will note here that it does not suggest that there is any particular god or supreme being to thank for his sanity or survival, after all, God had forsaken him for 29 years. No it all comes from within, and I think this poem fits rather well with the life-view that I am trying to develop and express here.
Enjoy!



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.

William Ernest Henley

From The Tominator.