HUMAN FRAILTY. William Cowper Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T14895 K027775.000 Cowper, William, 1731-1800. Poems: by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq. London printed for J. Johnson 1782 pp. 311-313. [4],367,[1]p. ; 8⁰.

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HUMAN FRAILTY . 1. WEAK and irresolute is man ; The purpose of to day , Woven with pains into his plan , To morrow rends away . 2. The bow well bent and smart the spring , Vice seems already slain , But passion rudely snaps the string , And it revives again . 3. Some foe to his upright intent Finds out his weaker part , Virtue engages his assent , But pleasure wins his heart . 4. '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 . 5. Bound on a voyage of awful length And dangers little known , A stranger to superior strength , Man vainly trusts his own . 6. 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 .