To a Newly-Married Friend

How shall a man fore-doom "d to lone estate,
Untimely old, irreverendly grey,
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 blest 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.