David Dunn: Nelson Mandela’s Daily Prayer

Some mention of Nelson Mandela’s daily prayer while in prison should be made.

He prayed the poem 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 bludgeons of chance.

My head is bloodied but unbowed.

 

In this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade;

Yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

 

It matters not how straight the gate

How charged with punishment the scroll.

I am the master of my fate

I am the captain of my soul.