This is my number one favourite poem of all time, one of the first English poem I've encountered, and one I've remembered by heart since I was 10 years old.

There's just something so uplifting and badass with it, as the Wikipedia page for it aptly describes:

A memorable evocation of Victorian stoicism—the "stiff upper lip" of self-discipline and fortitude in adversity

Invictus - 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.

Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51642/invictus

# adversity

Favourite Poem 1 - Invictus