Posted by JULIE (Webmistress) on August 20, 2014, 12:54 pm
Besides being one of the greatest singers the world has ever known, James Travis Reeves -- who would have been 91 years old today, August 20th, had he lived -- was also a deep thinker, interested in philosophy and the meaning of life. He often carried around books of poetry, including one given to him by his close Iowa friend, Wilma Sedivy, called "Poems To Warm the Heart." From this, only a few days before his passing, Jim hand-wrote the words that ended up being etched in his monument about "If I a lowly singer..." and asked an employee of his to have them printed so he could hang them on his wall.
In researching his book, "Jim Reeves: His Untold Story," Larry Jordan acquired massive amounts of Mr. Reeves' personal paperwork, dating from his childhood onward.
Here is a reproduction of a poem he especially liked. Note the date on it.
It was a work by William Ernest Henley, which reads in full:
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 fate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.