| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | VI. A Premature Old Bachelor, He Congratulates a Bridegroom | | By Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) |
| | | HOW shall a man foredoomed 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 | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
|
|
