Living on a Prayer

Did you ever notice how sometimes just one little thing can turn your day into crap?

Yeah.

There is this poem, by William Earnest Henley. It was written in 1875 when he was bedridden and stricken with tuberculosis of the bone. I didn't even know that was possible. He lost a foot at age 12, and lived his entire life with disability, but graduated Oxford and lived a full life. This poem was written during one of his many hospital visits during his life, when he was 26. He died at age 54.

The name of the poem is in Latin and it means 'Unconquered'.

Many of you will be familiar with its final phrases... here then, I share it with you in its entirety.

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 master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

These words move me, and give me stead on my tough days.

Like today.

Thanks, William. If only in my own suffering I could create something so beautiful for the world.

be well...