Human Frailty
Weak and irresolute is man;
The purpose of today,
Woven with pains into his plan,
Tomorrow rends away.
The bow well bent and smart the spring,
Vice seems already slain,
But passion rudely snaps the string,
And it revives again.
Some foe to his upright intent
Finds out his weaker part,
Virtue engages his assent,
But pleasure wins his heart.
'Tis here the folly of the wise
Through all his art we view,
And while his tongue the charge denies,
His conscience owns it true.
Bound on a voyage of awful length
And dangers little known,
A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trust his own.
But oars alone can ne'er prevail
To reach the distant coast,
The breath of heav'n must swell the sail,
Or all the toil is lost.
William Cowper, Cowper: Verse and Letters,(Edited by Brian Spiller), p.58.
