Invictus
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Invictus is a short poem by the British poet William Ernest Henley, which is the source of a number of familiar clichés and quotations. The title is Latin for "unconquered." It was first published in 1875.
The poem goes:
- 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.
In this poem, Henley gave the world the familiar phrases "my head is bloody, but unbowed" and "I am the master of my fate". These lines have been quoted many times by people who may not realize their source. They seem a hyperbolic epitome of the "stiff upper lip" that popular culture has made a traditional British virtue, and a handy image of stoicism in the face of disaster.
In the United States, this poem has become popular among paratroopers, many of whom commit it to memory to give them emotional support should they become a prisoner of war.
In the climax of the 1942 film King's Row, the poem is recited by Parris Mitchell (Robert Cummings) to friend Drake McHugh (Ronald Reagan) in an effort to overcome the latter's depression following a permanent injury.
It is also the name of an album by the Heavy Metal band Virgin Steele who use occasional lines of the poem as lyrics on the album.
The poem recently gained further notoriety by being quoted by the American terrorist Timothy McVeigh, who quoted it in a communiqué released shortly before his execution for murder committed in the Oklahoma City bombing.
See also
- If— by Rudyard Kipling
External links
- Image of Timothy McVeigh's final statement (http://www.skfriends.com/mcveigh-final-statement.htm) given the morning of his execution on June 11, 2001.
- Intellectual discussion on "Invictus", two opposing interpretations. (http://www.godofthemachine.com/archives/00000309.html)