Yet she had great need of tears: for on more than one account she respected her husband, even liked him, and did most desperately long to be loved by him. After all, she had borne him children: and since they had died he was her only stay in the world, her only hope of redemption. Years after there was found among her papers a tear-blotted sheet of verses dating from this sorrowful time: and though the sorrow opens and shows ahead, as in a flash, the contempt towards which the current is sweeping her, you see her travel down to it with hands bravely battling, clutching at the weak roots of love and hope along the shore: "O thou whom sacred rites design'd My guide and husband ever kind, My sovereign master, best of friends, On whom my earthly bliss depends: If e'er thou didst in Hetty see Aught fair or good or dear to thee, If gentle speech can ever move The cold remains of former love, Turn thou at last-my bosom ease, Or tell me _why_ I fail to please. "Is it because revolving years, Heart-breaking sighs, and fruitless tears Have quite deprived this form of mine Of all that once thou fancied'st fine? Ah no! what once allured thy sight Is still in its meridian height. Old age and wrinkles in this face As yet could never find a place; A youthful grace informs these lines Where still the purple current shines, Unless by thy ungentle art It flies to aid my wretched heart: Nor does this slighted bosom show The many hours it spends in woe. "Or is it that, oppress'd with care, I stun with loud complaints thine ear, And make thy home, for quiet meant, The seat of noise and discontent? Ah no! Thine absence I lament When half the weary night is spent, Yet when the watch, or early morn, Has brought me hopes of thy return, I oft have wiped these watchful eyes, Conceal'd my cares and curb'd my sighs In spite of grief, to let thee see I wore an endless smile for thee. "Had I not practised every art, To oblige, divert and cheer thy heart, To make me pleasing in thine eyes, And turn thy house to paradise, I had not ask'd 'Why dost thou shun These faithful arms, and eager run To some obscure, unclean retreat, With vile companions glad to meet, Who, when inspired by beer, can grin At witless oaths and jests obscene, Till the most learned of the throng Begins a tale of ten hours long To stretch with yawning other jaws, But thine in rapture of applause?'