Invictus
- Author
- William Ernest Henley
- Date
- 1875
- Language
- English
- Country
- Form
- Four quatrains, predominantly iambic tetrameter, with alternating rhyme
- First published
- A Book of Verses, 1888 (written 1875; untitled until 1900)
- Themes
- resilience, suffering, self-command
The source
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.
Commentary
Dr. Ruxandra RouxHead of Literary Research & Development
William Ernest Henley, written in 1875 during a long stay in hospital. First published in 1888 in A Book of Verses, without a title. “Invictus”, Latin for “unconquered”, was added by Arthur Quiller-Couch in 1900. The famous title is not Henley's.
The poem does not pretend that pain can be beaten. Fate, chance, time and death are all out of his hands. What he keeps is how he meets them: “bloody, but unbowed”. He thanks “whatever gods may be”, and the final authority is not divine. It is the voice that says “I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul”. Not a claim to control everything. A claim to own the response. It has been unconquered under another man's name for more than a century.
Songs
The song made from Invictus.
