Wedding reading

Not play related but from the novel "Sunset Song" by Lewis Grassic Gibbon - at the point of the wedding in the story (Chris is the bride):

But then Chae cried "Fill up your glasses, folk, the best man has a toast". And the red Highlander, McIvor, got up to his feet and bowed his red head to Chris, and began to speak; he spoke fine, though funny with that Highland twist, he said he'd never seen a sweeter quean than the bride or known a better friend than the groom; and he wished them long and lovely days, a marriage in the winter had the best of it. For was not the Spring to come and the seed-time springing of their love, and the bonny days of the summer, flowering it, and the autumn with the harvest of days? And when they passed to their other winter together they would know that was not the end of it, it was but a sleep that in another life would burgeon fresh from another earth. He could never believe but that two so young and fair as his friend and his friend's wife, once made one flesh would be one in the spirit as well; and have their days built of happiness and their nights of the music of the stars.