June 11, 2001
'... I am the master of my fate, I
am the captain of my soul'
McVeigh executed
Timothy James McVeigh, 33, was pronounced
dead at 7:14 a.m. by Warden Harley Lappin at the U.S. Penitentiary
in Terre Haute.
Instead of making an oral statement, McVeigh issued a copy of
the 1875 poem "Invictus," which follows:
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
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