Anna Wickham packs a lot into four lines. The speaker admits that her own intense moral moods — what she calls “fits of sore morality” — hurt both her partner and herself. These moments don’t feel noble; they feel destructive, turning the home into what she calls a mad hell. There is sharp self-awareness here, but also frustration, as if she knows the pattern and still feels caught in it.
The second half shifts to a more general statement: domestic misery begins when a woman hides her virtues and shows her sins. That line is bitter and compressed. It suggests a woman who cannot or will not let her better qualities be seen, while her flaws dominate the relationship. The overall mood is tense, regretful, and quietly furious — a confession that morality, in the wrong form, can become a weapon.