Sales Compendium

Continuing the theme from yesterday’s post, here is another poem with a [tenuous, this time] rugby connection. In the film, Invictus, the poem of that name featured as a motivator for the captain of the Springboks – Francois Pienaar, played by Matt Damon. It’s a short poem by William Henley – originally untitled, but subsequently called Invictus when it was included in The Oxford Book of English Verse.

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 straight the gait; How charged with punishments the scroll; I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley, 1849 – 1903