Thursday, September 13, 2007

The Churchill Series - Sept. 13, 2007

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Yesterday I said I'd respond today and tomorrow to some of your recent comments.

The September 10 post included this Churchill quote:

Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: "We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls." Speech on the War Situation, House of Commons, September 9, 1941
That drew a comment from an Anon who correctly noted Churchill was quoting the poet William Ernest Henley. Anon said recognizing Henley's words was once the "only thing I got right on an English test."

Well, Anon has gotten a lot smarter since because h/she went on to say, "Am in Awe of Sir Winston," and to suggest Henley "doubtless inspired" Churchill.

Anon's confident speculation that Henley "doubtless inspired" Churchill is something Churchill himself would readily have agreed to.

Churchill said that as a boy there were some things about school he liked. One of them was memorizing “lots of poetry by heart.”

When well into his eighties, Churchill could still recite poems he'd learned as a boy. Henley's Invictus was one of his favorites. The poem had always stirred him, he told people, and given him strength in trying times.

The following version is taken from Louis Untermeyer’s Modern British Poetry.
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'll respond to some other questions tomorrow.

I want to end this post by taking the first two stanzas of Invictus and following them with an act of "poetic license" to illustrate how I believe the poem stirred Churchill and gave him strength in trying times.

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.

"And we shall defend out island home, whatever the cost may be."

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

From the prose more powerful than poetry department:

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.