The poem Timothy McVeigh issued instead of making an oral statement before his execution this morning NZT.
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.
- William Ernest Henley, 1875