As I am listening to birds chip by the window, reflecting on my role in the world, a poem by William Ernest Henley trembles forth to my mind:⁣

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‘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.⁣

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In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud.⁣

Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.⁣

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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.⁣

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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.’⁣

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I love that poem. I love that poem. It summons the human spirit to recall the values at my core. Invictus, meaning “unconquerable” or “undefeated” in Latin, was a poem written while Henley was in the Hospital, being treated for tuberculosis of the bone.⁣

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