Poem by William Cowper

Human Frailty

Weak and irresolute is man;
The purpose of to-day,
Woven with pains into his plan,
To-morrow 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 trusts his own.

But oars alone can ne’er prevail
To reach the distant coast;
The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,
Or all the toil is lost. 

1. Olney Hymn 4. Jehovah-Nissi. The Lord My Banner
2. An Ode, on Reading Mr. Richardson's History of Sir Charles Grandison
3. Olney Hymn 17. The House of Prayer
4. Olney Hymn 13. The Covenant
5. Olney Hymn 55. The Heart Healed and Changed by Mercy

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