Unbesiegt

This is a poem I read and interpreted with my class of 14-year olds in Ladakh. We went through it in so much detail and I re-read it to the blind students often enough to almost come to know it by heart. Like so many things that once observed closely become interesting and important to somebody, it became meaningful to me.
It resurfaced in my mind a few days ago and I felt the wish to share it and conserve it here in case I want to look it up again.


Invictus (W.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.