My Favorite Poem

I am sharing with you one of my all-time favorite poems. I hope it will matter to you as much as it did to me. Everytime I read/recite (oh yes! I have memorized it now) the poem, it reminds me that my life is my responsibility and what I do with it is my choice. But still, the question lingers: Can we really be "masters of our fate" and captains of our soul"? Let's join hands in search for the answer.

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley; 1849-1903

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.