captain1

W.E. Henley, sculpted by Auguste Rodin

As he lay slowly dying in 1903,
atheist W. E. Henley - the man upon whom
Robert Louis Stevenson patterned Long John Silver

in Treasure Island - wrote of man’s free will to make
choices and then suffer - or enjoy - the consequences:

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 unbow'd.

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.

- W. E. Henley

(Henley had his left leg
amputated below the
knee at age 19.)