GEORGE MEREDITH
LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT[12]
| On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. Tired of his dark dominion, swung the fiend Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened, Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose. Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those. And now upon his western wing he leaned, And now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands careened, And now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows. Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars With memory of the old revolt from Awe, He reached a middle height, and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank. Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law. |
WILLIAM E. HENLEY
INVICTUS
| Out of the night that covers me, Black as a 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 still finds 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. |