Human Frailty.

Category: Poetry
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.

Available translations:

English (Original)