In the course of the summer she was ordered by her physician to Brighthelmstone, for the benefit of sea bathing. During hours of tedious watching over the health of her suffering child, Mrs. Robinson beguiled her anxiety by contemplating the ocean, whose successive waves, breaking upon the shore, beat against the wall of their little garden. To a mind naturally susceptible, and tinctured by circumstances with sadness, this occupation afforded a melancholy pleasure, which could scarcely be relinquished without regret. Whole nights were passed by Mrs. Robinson at her window in deep meditation, contrasting with her present situation the scenes of her former life. Every device which a kind and skilful nurse could invent to cheer and amuse her charge was practised by this affectionate mother, during the melancholy period of her daughter's confinement. In the intervals of more active exertion, the silence of a sick-chamber proving favourable to the muse, Mrs. Robinson poured forth those poetic effusions which have done so much honour to her genius and decked her tomb with unfading laurels. Conversing one evening with Mr. Richard Burke,[46] respecting the facility with which modern poetry was composed, Mrs. Robinson repeated nearly the whole of those beautiful lines, which were afterward given to the public, addressed: "To him who will understand them." "LINES "TO HIM WHO WILL UNDERSTAND THEM "Thou art no more my bosom's friend; Here must the sweet delusion end, That charmed my senses many a year, Through smiling summers, winters drear. Oh, friendship! am I doomed to find Thou art a phantom of the mind? A glitt'ring shade, an empty name, An air-born vision's vap'rish flame? And yet, the dear deceit so long Has wak'd to joy my matin song, Has bid my tears forget to flow, Chas'd ev'ry pain, sooth'd ev'ry woe; That truth, unwelcome to my ear, Swells the deep sigh, recalls the tear, Gives to the sense the keenest smart, Checks the warm pulses of the heart, Darkens my fate, and steals away Each gleam of joy through life's sad day.