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 gait,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
At the age of 12, Henley fell victim to tuberculosis of the bone.
A few years later, the disease progressed to his foot,
and physicians announced that the only way to save his life
was to amputate directly below the knee.
It was amputated when he was 25.
In 1867, he successfully passed the Oxford local examination
as a senior student.
In 1875, he wrote the "Invictus" poem from a hospital bed.
Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until his death at the age of 53.
In the 2009 movie Invictus produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, the poem is referenced several times. It becomes the central inspirational gift from Nelson Mandela, played by Morgan Freeman, to Springbok rugby team captain François Pienaar, played by Matt Damon, in advance of the post-apartheid Rugby World Cup hosted in 1995 by South Africa and won by the underdog Springboks.The poem is recited by the character Mandela as the character Pienaar and the team visits the Robben Island prison that held Nelson Mandela for 27 years, and Pienaar imagines Mandela and fellow prisoners as they had been there. The movie was based on the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin.
HERO MECHALITH / MECHALITH MILLENNIUM MEDIA℠ http://heromechalithmillennium.blogspot.com/
http://mechalithmillenniummedia.wordpress.com/
...a new age has begun.™
