I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

Cabarete sunset, originally uploaded by roooosah.

I watched Invictus this weekend, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon (L). The title of the movie is the poem that got Nelson Mandela through his 27 years in prison, by William Ernest Henley. I recall reading that poem in Grade 8 in my first ever high school social studies class. At 13 years old, I had no clue what the poem meant. Now older and wiser with some poetry training, I now understand that the this poem, kept Mandela's will strong, and to reunite his country after such hard times. I'm probably romanticizing the Apartheid issue as I'm not too familiar with the details. The movie however, told an important story represented through Mandela's political and human strategy of rugby to reunite the country. It is films like these, one that tells a story, one with a purpose, one with conviction, that I truly enjoy. The following is another poem by William Ernest Henley of an entirely different mood from Invictus.

Between the dusk of a summer night
Between the dusk of a summer night
And the dawn of a summer day,
We caught at a mood as it passed in flight,
And we bade it stoop and stay.
And what with the dawn of night began
With the dusk of day was done;
For that is the way of woman and man,
When a hazard has made them one.
Arc upon arc, from shade to shine
The World went thundering free;
And what was his errand but hers and mine --
The lords of him, I and she?
O, it's die we must, but it's live we can,
And the marvel of earth and sun
Is all for the joy of woman and man
And the longing that makes them one.

--William Ernest Henley