Dromo's Den

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William Ernest Henley Image

Audio recording (download wav. file) (courtesy Rothe Technologies, Inc.)

William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)

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.

Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Oxford Book of English

Verse, 1250- 1900 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912) 1019.