A Day of Sharing Words

"Clipper Ship Lightning" - Bruce Von Stetina
Copyright Bruce Von Stetina, reproduced with kind permission

Well, as so often, I missed the boat, but I am going out in my little dinghy to catch up! On 19 November there was a "Day of Sharing Words", a virtual (via blogs) poetry swop, started by LK Ludwig of The Poetic Eye. Read the original post here.

I just now read about this on Robyn's Art Propelled blog in this post. The idea was to post, on your blog, a poem that moves inside you, touches you, reaches you.

I often think of the following poem, when I feel in an "at-sea-in-a-storm" state of mind. Here it is:

INVICTUS
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 Ernest Henley, 1875
(Invictus is Latin for "unconquered")