"Invictus"by William Earnest Henley..."I am the Master of my Fate"...

"The following poem is a all-time classic and one of my favorites...

"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 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.

William Ernest Henley
(See Below for History of Henley)


Napoleon Hill...author of "Think and grow Rich",
shared some of his thought about this poem....
He wrote.....
"YOU ARE ‘THE MASTER OF YOUR FATE, THE CAPTAIN OF YOUR
SOUL,’ BECAUSE…
When Henley wrote the prophetic lines, ‘I am the
Master of my Fate, I am the Captain of my Soul,’ he
should have informed us that we are the Masters of
our Fate, the Captains of our Souls, because we have
the power to control our thoughts.
He should have told us that the ether in which this
little earth floats, in which we move and have our
being, is a form of energy moving at an inconceivably
high rate of vibration, and that the ether is filled
with a form of universal power which ADAPTS itself to
the nature of the thoughts we hold in our minds; and
INFLUENCES us, in natural ways, to transmute our
thoughts into their physical equivalent.
If the poet had told us of this great truth, we would
know WHY IT IS that we are the Masters of our Fate,
the Captains of our Souls. He should have told us,
with great emphasis, that this power makes no attempt
to discriminate between destructive thoughts and
constructive thoughts, that it will urge us to
translate into physical reality thoughts of poverty,
just as quickly as it will influence us to act upon
thoughts of riches.
He should have told us, too, that our brains become
magnetized with the dominating thoughts which we hold
in our minds, and, by means with which no man is
familiar, these ‘magnets’ attract to us the forces,
the people, the circumstances of life which harmonize
with the nature of our dominating thoughts.
He should have told us, that before we can accumulate
riches in great abundance, we must magnetize our
minds with intense DESIRE for riches, that we must
become ‘money conscious until the DESIRE for money
drives us to create definite plans for acquiring it.
But, being a poet, and not a philosopher, Henley
contented himself by stating a great truth in poetic
form, leaving those who followed him to interpret the
philosophical meaning of his lines."

Then Hill says....."Little by little, the truth has unfolded itself,
until it now appears certain that the principles
described in this book*, hold the secret of mastery
over our economic fate."

*i.e. "Think and Grow Rich

Great poem though....I use it as an Affirmation...
along with The Secret-Riches Visualisation Video
and The Secret to You Video...Everyday!

William Earnest Henley(August 23, 1849 – July 11, 1903) was an English poet,
critic and editor.
At the age of 12 Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone. In spite of his affliction, in 1867 he successfully passed the Oxford local examination as a senior student. But a hospital was to be Henley's university...."Invictus" was written from a hospital bed. His diseased foot, treated by crude methods, had to be amputated directly below the knee. Worse yet, physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate the other also. Henley fought this prognosis with all his spirit. The radical surgical methods pioneered by Joseph Lister saved Henley's foot and indeed his life. He was discharged from hospital in 1875 and was able to lead an active life for nearly 30 years.Henley published several collections of poems: A Book of Verses and Bric-à-brac. Echoes, the collection in which Invictus first appeared was published in 1892 marking the end of Henley's most productive period.
Today...there isn't much available in Literature for Henley's work...Amazon has a title...