Invictus...

Here is a fav poem of mine by William Ernest Henley. Check out the last lines ine each stanza:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods there 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.