So when this movie started playing on one of my flights last week, I reluctantly switched my headphone connection from iPod to the armrest port and started watching. I wasn't too keen on it anyway -- it mostly served as noise-canceler as I tried to read a book over the screams of kids and loud adults around. But I did catch a recurring reference to an old English poem that continued to linger in my mind long after I disembarked. And then the question hit me! Where did the movie's title come from?
It is from this poem, written in 1875, by William E. Henley:
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.
It is never too late to find inspiration. And it's never too much.
2 comments:
Interestingly enough, after reading through this blogpost, I found 'Invictus' in an anthology of poems complied by an Indian University.It was nestled along with another gem of a poem under the section: Adventure & Courage.
The other poem: "The Old Stoic" by Emile Bronte.
Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust for fame was a but a dream
That vanished with the morn:
And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!'
Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore;
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.
Thank you, Srikanth, for sharing a gem from Emile Bronte!
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