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.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 39 sec read
- 88 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABAB CXCX DEDE FGFG HIHI JXJX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 712 |
Words | 133 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"Human Frailty" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/39879/human-frailty>.
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