"I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul." Quoted by U.S. President Obama at Nelson Mandela's memorial, this is the most famous poem of the Victorian author William Ernest Henley, first published in England in 1875. Throughout his 27 years of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela found strength in this poem and later quoted it upon occasion. [The copyright of this poem has expired.] In memory of a great man, Red Bird :)