Ever read a poem that moved you to tears? Me neither. But this one did. Many times over.
Admittedly, the number of poems I have read in my lifetime is rather … how shall I put this delicately? Right, pathetic. Yes, pathetic is the word. I’ve never exactly experienced that fabled gravitational pull to poetry like so many sensitive, emotionally rankled individuals have. I confess it’s because I don’t think I have the mental faculty or emotional depth to fully comprehend and appreciate a poem … the way it should be comprehended and appreciated. So I have dutifully steered clear of them … until today, that is.
I don’t know how auspicious it is to be tearing up on the first day of the new year but this is just too beautiful.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as 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 Ernest Henley
*Double sniff*
