s from Lord Byron that expressed satisfaction.
Yet during the first days of what is vulgarly termed the "honey-moon,"
Lord Byron sent Moore some very melancholy verses, to be set to music,
said he, and which begin thus:--

"There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away."

Moore had already felt some vague disquietude, and he asked why he
allowed his mind to dwell on such sorrowful ideas? Lord Byron replied
that he had written these verses on learning the death of a friend of
his childhood, the Duke of Dorset, and, as his subsequent letters were
full of jests, Moore became reassured. Lord Byron said he was happy, and
so he really was; for Lady Byron, not being jealous then, continued to
be gentle and amiable.

"But these indications of a contented heart soon ceased. His mention of
the partner of his home became more rare and formal, and there was
observable, I thought, through some of his letters, a feeling of unquiet
and weariness that brought back all those gloomy anticipations which I
had, from the first, felt regarding his fate."

Above all, there were expressions in his letters that seemed of sad
augury. For instance, in announcing the birth of his little girl, Lord
Byron said that he was absorbed in five hundred contradictory
contemplations, although he had only one single object in view, which
would probably come to nothing, as it mostly happens with all we
desire:--

"But never mind," he said, "as somebody says, '_for the blue sky bends
over all_.' I only could be glad if it bent over me where it is a little
bluer, like _skyish top of blue Olympus_."

On reading this letter, dated the 5th of January, full of aspirations
after a blue sky, Moore was struck with the tone of melancholy pervading
it; and, knowing that it was Lord Byron's habit when under the pressure
of sorrow and uneasiness, to seek relief in expressing his yearnings
after freedom and after other climes, he wrote to him in these terms:--

"Do you know, my dear Byron, there was something in your last letter--a
sort of mystery, as well as a want of your usual elasticity of
spirits--which has hung upon my mind unpleasantly ever since. I long to
be near you, that I might know how you really look and feel, for these
letters tell nothing, and one word _a quattr' occhi_, is worth whole
reams of correspondence. But only do tell me you are happier than that
letter has led me to fear, and I shall be satisfied."

"It was," says Moore