Invictus Poem – Full Text Of Short Poem By William Ernest Henley
INVICTUS POEM – In this topic, we are going to know and read the full text of the poem Invictus which is written by William Ernest Henley.
As mentioned above, it is a short poem written by William Ernest Henley in 1875. It was then published in 1888 in his volume Book of Verses in the section Life and Death (Echoes).
It primarily has no title until it was added by editor Arthur Quiller-Couch. The title is Latin for “unconquered”.
The fourth stanza of the poem refers to a phrase from the King James version of the Bible in Matthew chapter 7, verse 14 which says:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which
Matthew 7:14 KJV
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Here is the full text of the poem uplifted from Poetry Foundation:
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.
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