I saw him stand
Before an altar with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The starlight of his boyhood:—­as he stood
Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then—­
As in that hour—­a moment o’er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced—­and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The faltering vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him:  he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been—­
But the old mansion and the accustom’d hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour. 
And her, who was his destiny, came back,
And thrust themselves between him and the light.

This is very affectingly described; and his prose description bears testimony to its correctness.  “It had been predicted by Mrs Williams that twenty-seven was to be a dangerous age for me.  The fortune-telling witch was right; it was destined to prove so.  I shall never forget the 2nd of January, 1815, Lady Byron was the only unconcerned person present; Lady Noel, her mother, cried; I trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after the ceremony called her Miss Milbanke.

“There is a singular history attached to the ring.  The very day the match was concluded a ring of my mother’s, that had been lost, was dug up by the gardener at Newstead.  I thought it was sent on purpose for the wedding; but my mother’s marriage had not been a fortunate one, and this ring was doomed to be the seal of an unhappier union still.

“After the ordeal was over, we set off for a country-scat of Sir Ralph’s (Lady B.’s father), and I was surprised at the arrangements for the journey, and somewhat out of humour, to find the lady’s maid stuck between me and my bride.  It was rather too early to assume the husband; so I was forced to submit, but it was not with a very good grace.  I have been accused of saying, on getting into the carriage, that I had married Lady Byron out of spite, and because she had refused me twice.  Though I was for a moment vexed at her prudery, or whatever you may choose to call it, if I had made so uncavalier, not to say brutal, a speech, I am convinced Lady Byron would instantly have left the carriage to me and the maid.  She had spirit enough to have done so, and would properly have resented the affront.  Our honeymoon was not all sunshine; it had its clouds.

“I was not so young when my father died, but that I perfectly remember him, and had a very early horror of matrimony from the sight of domestic broils:  this feeling came over me very strongly at my wedding.  Something whispered me that I was sealing my own death-warrant.  I am a great believer in presentiments:  Socrates’s demon was not a fiction; Monk Lewis had his monitor, and Napoleon many warnings.  At the last moment I would have retreated, could I have done so; I called to mind a friend of mine, who had married a young, beautiful, and rich girl, and yet was miserable; he had strongly urged me against putting my neck in the same yoke.”