We are Invictus

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Yesterday I saw Invictus , a wonderful movie by Clint Eastwood. It is about the time of Nelson Mandela when he was just elected as the president of South Africa post apartheid. It showed how divided the country was during that time and how Madiba (as Nelson is called by inhabitants) forged unity among the people by inspiring François Pienaar, the then captain of Springbok( South African National Rugby team), who later goes on to win world cup for his country. A truely inspiring movie and the most inspiring was the poem that Nelson mentioned, Invictus. The poem that kept him standing when all he wanted to do was to lie down in the prison of Robben Island where he remained for eighteen years of his twenty seven years in jail. Friends I will like to share with you the poem.

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.

William E Henley’s beautiful poem Invictus has inspired many greats like Nelson and will continue to do so in future to come.
Suffered from tuberculosis of bone from age of 12 and got his leg amputated later, Henley wrote this poem when he was in hospital. Through this poem we come across a conflicting idea of the poet. He seems to be a person who believes in the idea of God but again he considers man as the master of fate and the captain of his soul. It does seems contradictory from the top. But I interpret him as a person who is a theist(which is quite obvious for a poet in Victorian era), believes in His existence but at the same time he believes in human spirit and his/her ‘stubborn courage’.

Truly this is a inspiration poem for all of us and yes we are INVICTUS.

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