Thanks for the support, 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.

Easily one of the silliest poems in English.

I hope you enjoy NOLA, Thucy.

Is that because it is agnostic or is it because it is anti-fatalist?

Neither. It is because it asserts patently silly claims. If Henley was the master of his fate, why did he die at 53 of tuberculosis? Why did his daughter die at five, devastating him? These were things he couldn't control.

There's nothing wrong with preaching courage in the face of circumstance. But it's absurd to pretend we control it or that it doesn't affect us. As Henley's close friend J.M. Barrie said

"Henley says in that poem we were speaking of:

'Under the bludgeonings of Chance
My head is bloody but unbowed.'

A fine mouthful, but perhaps 'My head is bloody and bowed' is better."

Lol you missed the entire point of the poem then.

It doesn't mean you can control what happens in your life, it means you can control how you react to it.

In essence: there is always something you can do. Even when there is nothing that can be done, what can be done is acceptance that nothing can be done.

Do you not see how this poem is a triumph over his grief and disability....?

Humans are more than the sum of their parts. We can be half-dead and still find profound meaning in our lives, and every one of us and can go to our graves proudly and as he says, unafraid.

Whatever, I guess if you can't internalize the amazing message of this poem it's ultimately your loss.

Yes, Thucy, I totally get what the poem is saying, and have thought about the poem quite a bit over the years.

But Barrie is right. You can't. You can try, but you're not really human if you march on, head unbowed, after your five-year-old daughter has died.

We don't control what events happen to us and those we love, and we fully control our response to it only if we can become sufficiently detached, which is far from a noble goal. Give me instead Sir Andrew Barton:

"'Fight on, my men,' says Sir Andrew Barton,
'I am hurt, but I am not slain;
I'll lay me down and bleed a while,
And then I'll rise and fight again.' "

" Do you not see how this poem is a triumph over his grief and disability....?"

Do you think this line is actually true?

"In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud."

Do you think, if it were true, it would even be admirable?

I think you're taking it a bit literally.

It's not saying stop having emotions, it's saying don't let the circumstances of your life destroy you or rob you of meaning.

In mindfulness meditation the purpose is not to become detached or "zen" as it is popularly imagined in the west, the purpose is to acknowledge how you feel and accept it, and become mindful of it rather than owned by it.

I.e. to become your own master.

And ultimately "Invictus" is about not being afraid of death or paralyzed by the possibility that death is the end and there is no meaning in life.

It's essentially the human condition, that's why it's so good.

I don't really think Henley was talking about mindfulness meditation. I don't think it's even that clearly talking about meaning, though that does lurk as subtext. I think he is talking about mastery of oneself in whatever circumstances. I just think he took it to a silly place that has little to do with humans.

Again, I think courage in the face of death and disaster is laudable. But I think pretending that they don't affect us is silly, and that is the claim of the poem, however literally or figuratively one chooses to interpret those words.

For the record, I'm named after the Roman sun god, not the poem.

Well, I don't agree, literally they do affect us, figuratively and spiritually they do not have to effect us negatively.

As someone who surely practices the "God works in mysterious ways" platitude, you must know what I mean by this.

Anyway I'm not saying he is talking about mindfulness meditation, I just think he is hinting at a similar process, that of self-mastery by acknowledging the reality of your emotions but not indulging them.

Hence "bloody but unbowed."

Well, we'll have to be sure to tell abused children and starving refugees from now on that they are the masters of their fate.

Well, it helped John McCain when he was being tortured.

And meditation, which as I've tried to show is similar if not the same thing, is now widely used in psychological treatment for abused children and so on.

Of course no one gives a shit about starving refugees, they're on their own like always.

Seed corn? There are a fair number of things you can knock about Louisiana, but the food sure as hell ain't one of 'em

Oh, it's not a knock on Louisiana as such at all. You must not be familiar with the idiom. I think Thucydides is "eating his seed corn" since, rather than taking the opportunity to get started on a career in one city, he is moving to another where he has no job lined up and no probable prospect of finding one with as good of pay and opportunity for advancement in his field as the one he is turning down. Put simply, he's enjoying himself a lot in the short term rather than making the plans to continue to live well in the long term. That's what I mean and what the idiom means.

Obviously the food in New Orleans will be better. Never thought that was in doubt.

Oh, lol, that's a new idiom for me. Neat! My bad. Carry on!

Good luck Thucy!

It's a farming idiom and possibly a bit of a colloquialism as a result, the seed corn being the corn intended to plant next year's crop in the spring. If you eat it over the winter just because you are hungry and you are sure to starve next year.

Well rest assured amigos, I've been on this site so long there's no leaving, so if I starve next winter, you will all witness it in real time. Lol.