Happy Christmas Eve friends!! I just finished watching the new movie Invictus and wow. I loved it!! I'm usually not a fan of sports films, but this was so much more. It was a great historical account of the first few months of Mandela's presidency and his work to heal the still raw wounds of apartheid South Africa. In honor of this awesome movie, I've decided to post the poem that inspired the title in this Fifth installment of African Poets Week.
According to the all knowing Wikipedia -
The title comes from the fact that Mandela had the poem written on a scrap of paper on his prison cell while he was incarcerated. In the movie, Mandela gives the "Invictus" poem to Springbok captain, Francois Pienaar, before the start of the Rugby World Cup. In reality, Mandela actually provided Pienaar with an extract from Theodore Roosevelt's "The Man in the Arena" speech from 1910.
Enjoy!! and be sure to check out the film! You wont regret it:-)
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.
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