William Ernest Henley's Invictus ends as follows:
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.
Half-right, say I. I am the captain of the ship of soul, my soul; I control rudder and sails and chart my course. But I am not the master of the sea or the wind or the monsters of the deep or the visibility of the stars by which I steer, or the stars themselves.
Nor am I the master of that which I control, my soul. That I am a soul is beyond my control.
And so my captaincy, sovereign in its own domain, and undeniable there, is bound round and denied by conditions and contingencies beyond my control.
I am not the master of my fate; at most I am the master of my attitude to it.