something turned out not to be
Posted by raftigidig at 01:52 AM on January 14, 2006.
A part of this was on the board of one room on my floor, but the title was not written. So I found it through google being cited under the theme of "Sorrow and Consolation" and under the subtheme "Comfort and Cheer." Here. It's just not the place to put it.
It's an evocation of Victorian Stoicism.
So for the pleasure of a community that has probably seen it posted for a hundredth time
Invictus
by 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 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 don't think it's a good poem. I like the first two lines and the 10th. Otherwise it's very dry.
and i'm not cynical. i liked this poem (which if i remember, Charlie Veric likes too.) As you set out for Ithaka
Ithaka
By Cavafy
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon -- don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind --
as many sensual perfumes as you can,
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her, you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have [deceived] you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
++++
I was thinking it was related to former entries because I misread "unconquerable" as "unfathomable" (no that was a lie, I actually read "unknowable;" blame my floormate's handwriting).
Lead my thoughts to the hypothesis that in some paradigm, there is no such a thing as an antithesis. It's all just emotive. (emotive i get from my 9-person moral philosophy class.) We talk about all the same things all the time. all the same things. all the time.
, is meaningful to me.
