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
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I watched Invictus a few times this weekend with my family. What a wonderful revealing story about the birth of a nation borne from the unity around sports! I am grateful for the opportunity with this movie to explain attempt to explain the unexplainable such as apartheid and divisions between people of different color and cultures and why that is to my ten and twelve year olds.
This poem is especially poignant in relation to the film and its story of South Africa and her people. However, it really is a story of all people over time immemorial and the constant struggle between fear and love of one another. The yin and yang of getting along with each other.
It's a conversation for a lifetime isn't it?
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