Invictus
16 lines · about a minute to read aloud
William Ernest Henley · 1888
Free to use in the UK and the US
Invictus
William Ernest Henley · 1888
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.
Poems, William Ernest Henley. Project Gutenberg eBook #1568, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1568/pg1568.txt. The poem is untitled in this edition, printed as number IV of the Echoes sequence under the dedication 'I. M. R. T. Hamilton Bruce (1846-1899)' and dated 1875.
Public domain in the UK and the US · serany.app
What Serany thinks about this poem
Background
Henley wrote it in 1875, in his twenties, in a hospital bed. He had tubercular arthritis and had already lost a leg below the knee at seventeen; he was in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh fighting to keep the other one, which he kept. It was published untitled in 1888 and carried the name Invictus, Latin for unconquered, only later, from an editor rather than from Henley. It reached most people through Nelson Mandela, who recited it to fellow prisoners on Robben Island.
Meaning
It says that whatever happens to you, the part of you that decides who you are cannot be taken. The speaker is in the dark and in pain and does not pretend otherwise: his head is bloody. What he refuses is to be bowed by it. The last two lines are the whole poem, and they are a statement of ownership rather than of hope.
Who's it for
Read this for someone who was told what their life was going to be and did not accept it: a long illness met head-on, a disability carried without comment, a hard start outlived. It suits a person others called stubborn and who you would call brave. It is not a gentle poem and it does not console anyone, so it is the wrong choice if what the room needs is permission to cry. It is also the wrong choice for a death that came suddenly, because its whole force comes from a fight that lasted years.
If this one is not right
Now put it in the order of service
Try our order of service builder. Add the poems, songs and readings you have chosen, and we put the booklet together around them.
Make an order of service