“That plaguy voice of yours made me sentimental, and almost fall in love with a girl who was recommending herself, during your song, by hating music.  But the song is past, and my passion can wait, till the pucelle is more harmonious.

“Do you go to Lady Jersey’s to-night?  It is a large party, and you won’t be bored into ‘softening rocks,’ and all that.  Othello is to-morrow and Saturday too.  Which day shall we go? when shall I see you?  If you call, let it be after three, and as near four as you please.

     “Ever,” &c.

[Footnote 30:  An epigram here followed, which, as founded on a scriptural allusion, I thought it better to omit.]

[Footnote 31:  We had been invited by Lord R. to dine after the play,—­an arrangement which, from its novelty, delighted Lord Byron exceedingly.  The dinner, however, afterwards dwindled into a mere supper, and this change was long a subject of jocular resentment with him.]

* * * * *

TO MR. MOORE.

     “May 4. 1814.

     “Dear Tom,

“Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting.[32] Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without phrase.

     “Ever yours,

     “BYRON.

        “I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name,
        There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame;
        But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart
        The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.

        “Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace
        Were those hours—­can their joy or their bitterness cease? 
        We repent—­we abjure—­we will break from our chain—­
        We will part,—­we will fly to—­unite it again!

        “Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt! 
        Forgive me, adored one!—­forsake, if thou wilt;—­
        But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased,
        And man shall not break it—­whatever thou mayst.

        “And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee,
        This soul, in its bitterest blackness, shall be;
        And our days seem as swift, and our moments more sweet,
        With thee by my side, than with worlds at our feet.

        “One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love,
        Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove;
        And the heartless may wonder at all I resign—­
        Thy lip shall reply, not to them, but to mine.”

[Footnote 32:  I had begged of him to write something for me to set to music.]

* * * * *

TO MR. MOORE.