I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul.

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.

Open your heart and take us in, Love-love and me.

Life - life - let there be life!

Life - life - let there be life! Better a thousand times the roaring hours When wave and wind, Like the Arch-Murderer in flight From the Avenger at his heel, Storm through the desolate fastnesses And wild waste places of the world!

Life - life - life! 'Tis the sole great thing This side of death, Heart on heart in the wonder of Spring!

Life is a smoke that curls- Curls in a flickering skein, That winds and whisks and whirls, A figment thin and vain, Into the vast inane. One end for hut and hall.

Were I so tall as to reach the pole or grasp the ocean at a span, I must be measured by my soul. The mind is the standard of the man.