Byron made his unhappy marriage the subject of at least three epigrams. Here are two of them as follows:—
On His Wedding-day.
“Here’s a happy new year! But with reason
I beg you’ll permit me to say—
Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the day.”
At a later period he wrote—
“This day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you:
’Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.”
Lord Byron’s friend, Thomas Moore, wrote many excellent epigrams, and not a few were penned about him. He published his first volume of poems under the name of Thomas Little. It is stated that a lady found a copy of the book under the pillow of her maid’s bed, and wrote on it in pencil:—
“You read Little, I guess;
I wish you’d read less.”
The servant was equal to her mistress, and wrote:—
“I read Little before,
Now I mean to read Moore.”
Lord Byron wrote the following in 1811 on Moore’s farcical opera:—