Invictus

by 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 or cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance,

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror and 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.