Alone- Edgar Allan Poe

                                                    From childhood's hour I have not been
                                                    As others were; I have not seen
                                                    As others saw; I could not bring
                                                    My passions from a common spring.
                                                    From the same source I have not taken
                                                    My sorrow; I could not awaken
                                                    My heart to joy at the same tone;
                                                    And all I loved, I loved alone.
                                                    Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
                                                    Of a most stormy life- was drawn
                                                    From every depth of good and ill
                                                    The mystery which binds me still:
                                                     From the torrent, or the fountain,
                                                    From the red cliff of the mountain,
                                                    From the sun that round me rolled
                                                    In its autumn tint of gold,
                                                    From the lightning in the sky
                                                    As it passed me flying by,
                                                    From the thunder and the storm,
                                                    And the cloud that took the form
                                                    (When the rest of Heaven was blue)
                                                    Of a demon in my view.

Invictus

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.