Invictus

"Invictus" is a short Victorian poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley. It was written in 1875 and published in 1888 in his first volume of poems, Book of Verses, where it is the fourth poem in the section Life and Death, and titled "Out of the night that covers me". It originally had no title. Early printings contained only the dedication To R. T. H. B.—a reference to Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce, a successful Scottish flour merchant and baker who was also a literary patron. The title "Invictus" was added by editor Arthur Quiller-Couch when the poem was included in The Oxford Book of English Verse .