John Milton Quote

If by prayer
Incessant I could hope to change the will
Of him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary him with my assiduous cries;
But prayer against his absolute decree
No more avails than breath against the wind
Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth:
Therefore to his great bidding I submit.

Cowper's Milton, in Four Volumes: Paradise Lost, and the Fragment of a Commentary upon it by William Cowper (ed. 1810)