Invictus

This is a poem that is said to have kept President Nelson Mandela going during his time in prison. Perhaps the one that helped save a nation at the end.

A beautiful poem that I just adore that I have recorded and am presenting in the form of a video. Most of the clippings were shot around the place where I stay and the voice is a result of an experimentation in my make-shift studio. 

This poem is titled "Invictus" - a short Victorian poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903). It was written in 1875 and published in 1888.

Out Of The Night That Covers Me  (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.

- By William Ernest Henley  (1849-1903)

The Unconquered

This poem, Invictus (The unconquered) from the late nineteenth century by William Earnest Henley, is supposed to be Mr. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's favourite that kept him going while in the prison in Robben Island. This is a Man who spent 27 years of his life in dingy cells and hard labour, (when many of us would have cracked), just because he stood up for what he considered right. And well, he was.and he is...
May his soul R.I.P.