The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

MISCELLANY

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 heart 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 superiour strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.
But ours alone can ne'er prevail, lost
To reach the distant coast;
The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,
Or all the toil is lost.