Reflection of Invictus Poem

The poem "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley is a dark, depressing poem. It's about someone, whoever the speaker is, we don't know, who prays, thanking "whatever Gods may be" for his "unconquerable soul". The speaker is in some type of despair and is rather undaunted by his misery. He prays not for the strength to get him through this, but rather, thanks the Gods for what strength he already has. With no complaint or cry for help or of pain, he has overcome the circumstances he is in, he has taken his chances and beginning to accept reality. "In the fell clutch of circumstance/I have not winced nor cried aloud./Under the bludgeonings of chance". The third stanza is the last stanza of real deep, dark, depressing, and heavy description of feeling. It hits the reader hard because it describes death and what death is like to the speaker. Nothing seems to frighten the speaker, however. The speaker remains indifferent throughout the poem, even through all the detailed descriptions of death, "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." Death does not faze the speaker. He/She is not worried. Death is merely an end to the speaker's suffering. He is not concerned with anything that lies beyond death, such as an afterlife. Death is personified in this stanza. It is shown when Horror is capitalized and the line from the first stanza "Black as the Pit from pole to pole" refers to Hell as the Pit. He/She is his own god, guide, and judge. He/She is the captain, running his own life, and in charge of his soul. "I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my own soul." Here the speakers realizes his/her fate and comes to terms with this truth. This poem is similar to Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" because the soldiers in this poem are performing a suicide brigade, knowing their plans will fall through, but they do it anyway. The speaker of this poem comes to terms with death, and goes through, preparing for its outcome.