FRAILTY.
Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.—Psalm xxxix. 4.
But man with frailty is allied by birth.
Bishop Lowth.
By nature peccable and frail are we,
Easily beguiled; to vice, to error prone;
But apt for virtue too. Humanity
Is not a field where tares and thorns alone
Are left to spring; good seed hath there been sown
With no unsparing hand. Sometimes the shoot
Is choked with weeds, or withers on a stone;
But in a kindly soil it strikes its root,
And flourisheth, and bringeth forth abundant fruit.
Southey.
“How meanly dwells th’ immortal mind!
How vile these bodies are!
Why was a clod of earth designed
T’ enclose a heavenly star?
“Weak cottage where our souls reside,
This flesh a tott’ring wall;
With frightful breaches gaping wide,
The building bends to fall.
“All round it storms of trouble blow,
And waves of sorrow roll;
Cold waves and winter storms beat through,
And pain the tenant soul.
“Alas! how frail our state!” said I;
And thus went mourning on,
Till sudden from the cleaving sky
A gleam of glory shone.
My soul felt all the glory come,
And breathed her native air;
Then she remembered heaven, her home,
And she a prisoner here.
Straight she begun to change her key,
And joyful in her pains,
She sang the frailty of her clay
In pleasurable strains.
Watts.