Ancestors
Read "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley, with a complete literary analysis exploring courage, resilience, suffering, personal responsibility, fate, and the speaker's unwavering determination to remain master of his fate and captain of his soul.
BEHOLD these jewelled merchant Ancestors
Foregathered in some chancellery of death;
Calm provident discreet they stroke their beards
And move their faces slowly in the gloom
And barter monstrous wealth with speech subdued 5
Lustreless eyes and acquiescent lids.
And oft in pauses of their conference
They listen to the measured breath of night¡¯s
Hushed sweep of wind aloft the swaying trees
In dimly gesturing gardens; then a voice 10
Climbs with clear mortal song half-sad for heaven.
A silent-footed message flits and brings
The ghostly Sultan from his glimmering halls;
A shadow at the window turbaned vast
He leans; and pondering the sweet influence 15
That steals around him in remembered flowers
Hears the frail music wind along the slopes
Put forth and fade across the whispering sea.
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