"Invictus" 

Invictus is a level 4 piece for SATB Choir & Piano. It is an excellent work for high school, college, and community choirs. The work is based on two William Ernest Henley poems (IV, & XI) from his collection entitled "Life and Death Echoes".  Henley had one leg amputated at the age of 16 due to complications from tuberculosis. At 23, he was told he should have the other leg amputated, but chose to seek treatment from Joseph Lister instead of amputation. While in treatment, Henley wrote the verses that later became known as “Invictus”, also used as the title for the movie, based on the John Carlin book, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation. The second poem is listed by its first line. The two texts interspersed with each other become dynamic thoughts and images about the unconquerable and indomitable human soul. The famous line; "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul" is the final line from "Invictus". 

The musical setting is intentionally reminiscent of the great hymns and orchestral pieces of Victorian England with uplifting ascending lines that move us steadfastly onward, upward, and foreword, as "Light is above us, and rest is before us." 

"Invictus" & "Thick is the darkness..." - William Ernest Henley (1849 – 1903) originally untitled and published in Henley’s Book of Verses in the Echoes of Life & Death

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. 

Thick is the darkness -
Sunward, O, sunward!
Rough is the highway –
Onward, still onward!

Dawn harbours surely,
East of the shadows,
Facing us somewhere
Spread the sweet meadows.

It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate, 
The captain of my soul.

Upward and forward!
Time will restore us
Light is above us,
Rest is before us.

It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate, 
The captain of my soul.