And so the Diary ends …….

……… with this poem

Life and Death

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 or cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings 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 strait the gate,

How charged with punishment the scroll,

I am the master of my fate

I am the Captain of my soul.

Wm. Ernest Henley

The poem is usually known as ‘Invictus’

Next post:

I think I may have discovered the identity of our Suffragette.