I’ve always found poetry to be my favourite form of literature. Especially the sorts which have stories to tell in just four lines and keep you thinking for days after you read them.
A friend shared this poem today and in light of some recent events, I thought they were some of the most beautiful and empowering verses I have read.
Life hurls before us many choices – on making some we may feel delight or regret. It also brings forth several situations where we don’t have a say. Nothing can be done but be washed over by circumstance like a hapless bystander.
What I find important here is that all of these teach us something valuable. And make us a little more resilient. Here’s to all us who have gone through something difficult this year, those who have experienced irreplaceable loss, seen happiness evade them one more time, or those that felt tomorrow might not be a better day.
I give you ‘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 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.