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.