Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1059

 THE HON. EMILY LAWLESS

She said, 'I never called them sons, I almost ceased to breathe their name, Then caught it echoing down the wind, Blown backward* from the lips of Fame.'

She said, 'Not mine, not mine that fame, Far over sea, far over land, Cast forth like rubbish from my shores, They won it yonder, sword in hand.'

She said, 'God knows they owe me nought, I tossed them to the foaming sea, I tossed them to the howling waste, Yet stilt their lore comes home to me*

��WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY 853 Invictus

UT of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable boul.

��o

��In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonmgs of chance My head is bloody, but unbow'd.

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.

�� �