15.07.2007, 13:19
A Premature Old Bachelor, He Congratulates A Bridegroom. /
To a newly-married Friend
How shall a man fordoomed to lone estate,
Untimely old, irreverendly gray,
Much like a patch of dusky snow in May,
Dead sleeping in a hollow, all too late, -
How shall so poor a thing congratulate
The best completion of a patient wooing,
Or how commend a younger man for doing
What ne’er to do hath been his fault, or fate?
There is a fable, that I once did read,
Of a bad angel that was someway good,
And therefore on the brink of Heaven he stood,
Looking each way, and no way could proceed;
Till at the last he purged away his sin,
By loving all the joy he saw within.
To a newly-married Friend
How shall a man fordoomed to lone estate,
Untimely old, irreverendly gray,
Much like a patch of dusky snow in May,
Dead sleeping in a hollow, all too late, -
How shall so poor a thing congratulate
The best completion of a patient wooing,
Or how commend a younger man for doing
What ne’er to do hath been his fault, or fate?
There is a fable, that I once did read,
Of a bad angel that was someway good,
And therefore on the brink of Heaven he stood,
Looking each way, and no way could proceed;
Till at the last he purged away his sin,
By loving all the joy he saw within.