IN MY SHOES: Poetry Makes The Man
In his New York Times column, William Kristol notes that “McCain comes from a generation that, in its youth, was made to memorize poetry.” In an interview, the presidential hopeful told Kristol that one of the poems he had memorized in school was William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus” (1875) – bits of which he recited over the phone. For those of you who are not familiar with this stirring Victorian verse, it’s the one that ends with these lines:
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.
Though of a different generation than McCain, The Stiletto also memorized poetry as a child - at the insistence of her mother - and can still recite “Ozymandias,” “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” and other favorite poems by heart. Should The Stiletto ever meet a man who is the living embodiment of “If,” he will capture her heart forever.
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