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:
Despite the troubles he’s probably already overcome and those that will come in the future, the speaker is not afraid to face them. He uses both the present and future tenses—he’s confident that this is how he is and will be. He doesn’t fear what may come, no matter how dangerous, frightening or violent. 
 He seems to be setting up the last part of the poem here; he will always stand unafraid.
Invictus