Arjuna Ronin

As I am listening to birds chip by the window, reflecting on my role in the world, a poem by William Ernest Henley trembles forth to my mind:⁣ ⁣ ‘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.’⁣ ⁣ I love that poem. I love that poem. It summons the human spirit to recall the values at my core. Invictus, meaning “unconquerable” or “undefeated” in Latin, was a poem written while Henley was in the Hospital, being treated for tuberculosis of the bone.⁣ ⁣