Invictus, A Poem Of Optimism

Hello,

This is Jackie.

Today I would like to share a very special poem with you that has sustained me in times of trouble.

Last year I discovered I had a very rare and tiny thing growing in my heart that needed to be removed via open heart surgery,

Or all could be trouble.

It was a hard blow to my long,

Actively exercising life of fitness.

I was delivered this news just a day after my mom died.

I was kind of numb with this one-two punch to my life.

And in the midst of all of this,

It was uplifting passages such as I'm going to read you today that sustained me.

I'm going to read Invictus by William Ernst Henley.

He wrote it in 1875 while he was in the middle of a 20-month hospital stay as he was recovering from horrible surgeries,

Trying to save his right leg from amputation.

His left one had already been amputated.

When he was a child of 12,

He contracted tuberculosis of the bone,

Which is also known as tubercular arthritis.

He was not a religious fellow and didn't have a religious framework upon which to rely.

And in fact,

In the poem,

He calls his sufferings the bludgeonings of chance.

So let us begin Invictus by William Ernst 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 foul 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 straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul.