Analysis of Human Frailty
William Cowper 1731 (Berkhamsted) – 1800 (Dereham)
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.
Scheme | ABAB CXCX DEDE FGFG HIHI JXJX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (67%) |
Metre | 10111 010111 10110111 110101 01110101 110101 11010101 010101 11110101 111101 10010101 110111 11010101 111111 01110101 110111 110101101 010101 010101001 110111 11011101 110101 011101101 110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 712 |
Words | 133 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 95 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 39 sec read
- 88 Views
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"Human Frailty" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39879/human-frailty>.
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