The Soul's Captain

Hopefully, you have seen the movie Invictus with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. It's a pretty good movie. I haven't heard how Nelson Mandela is in real life, but Freeman portrays him as probably the most Christ-like leader I have ever seen depicted in film. It was pretty inspiring to me.

The poem, by the same name as the movie, by William Ernest Henley, is referenced several times in the movie. While Mandela was incarcerated on Robben Island, the poem Invictus was a great source of strength and inspiration for him because of its message of self-mastery.

The first 3 stanzas of the poem are pretty inspiring. As President Hinckley said, "It is a great poem. It places upon the individual the responsibility for what he does with his life. Through these many years, when I have been faced with difficult choices I have repeated these stirring words."

Invictus

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.

The last stanza, however, is rather defiant of any god or "higher power." In it, Henley basically says he can choose his own path, make his own rules, and that he is above any sort of punishment found in scripture.

After Henley wrote Invictus, Orson F. Whitney, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrote a response entitled The Soul's Captain.

The Soul's Captain

Art thou in truth? Then what of him 

Who bought thee with his blood? 

Who plunged into devouring seas 

And snatched thee from the flood?

Who bore for all our fallen race 

What none but him could bear. – 

The God who died that man might live, 

And endless glory share?

Of what avail thy vaunted strength, 

Apart from his vast might? 

Pray that his Light may pierce the gloom, 

That thou mayest see aright.

Men are as bubbles on the wave, 

As leaves upon the tree. 

Thou, captain of thy soul, forsooth 

Who gave that place to thee?

Free will is thine -- free agency 

To wield for right or wrong; 

But thou must answer unto him 

To whom all souls belong.

Bend to the dust that head "unbowed," 

Small part of Life's great whole! 

And see in him, and him alone, 

The Captain of thy soul.