American Football Poem

I am the Master of my Fate

Often read before a football game:

Willian Ernest Henley (1875) .

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 bludgeoning 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 straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the Captain of my soul.