|
|
|
|
|
from: Poems
by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
[pseud for the Brontës]
LEA & BLANCHARD [Philadelphia] (1848)
|
|
THE OLD STOIC.
RICHES I hold in light esteem;
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanished with the morn:
And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!"
Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore;
In life and death, a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.
|
ELLIS
[pseud for Charlotte Brontë]
(1816-1855)
|
|
|
|
|
from The Academy,
No 591 (1883-sep-01) p144
|
|
WEARY NOT THE GODS.
THE gods look half in pity,
Each from his shining throne,
On fevered hearts beneath them,
On breaking hearts that moan.
Unwearied they will not hasten
their golden gifts to send,
They know the times of ripeness
When shower and sunshine blend.
But he who ceases moaning,
And calmly lives his days,
On him they rain their blessings
With quiet steady gaze.
|
C. E. DAWKINS
[Sir Clinton Edward Dawkins]
(1859–1905)
|
|
|
|
written in 1875;
first published in:
A book of Verses
by William Ernest Henley
DAVID NUTT [London] (1888)
|
This poem had no formal title for the first twenty-five years, until
Arthur Quiller-Couch called it "Invictus" when compiling the Oxford
Book of English Verse (1900).
Myself
aka, Song of a Strong Soul
aka, My Soul
aka, Clear Grit
aka, Master of His Fate
aka, Captain of My Soul
aka, Urbs Fortitudinis
aka, De Profundis
aka, 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.
[by W E Henley]
(1849-1903)
|
|
|
|
