Invictus
BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY
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 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 punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world

Night of the Scorpion I remember the night my mother
was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
of steady rain had driven him
to crawl beneath a sack of rice. Parting with his poison - flash
of diabolic tail in the dark room -
he risked the rain again. The peasants came like swarms of flies
and buzzed the name of God a hundred times
to paralyse the Evil One. With candles and with lanterns
throwing giant scorpion shadows
on the mud-baked walls
they searched for him: he was not found.
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made his poison moved in Mother's blood, they said. May he sit still, they said
May the sins of your previous birth
be burned away tonight, they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of all evil
balanced in this unreal world against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
May the poison purify your flesh of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
they said, and they sat around
on the floor with my mother in the centre,
the peace of understanding on each face.
More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours,
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through,
groaning on a mat.
My father, sceptic, rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy man perform his rites to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting. My mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
And spared my children.

I too like Daffodils and many more along with it.
The one poem which first touched me and I discovered my love for poetry was . "The night of the Scorpion" i could feel the pain of the sting ..., The love of the mother when she said in the end that ....thank God it bit me and spared my children ...I was in grade 4 when I first read this...but I understood the depth and pain and unconditional love of Mother !!

I love daffodils its my favourite poem too. Swati upadhyay @5f8b3e3f43e4090046317c11