Viewing entries tagged
resilience

Something I liked at 10 and helps me again

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- from Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson (lines 65-70)

Invictus

Here's one of my favorite poems, Invictus by William Ernest Henley. I feel it could be at the helm of an old ship navigating turbulent waters.

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.