Skip to content
Linespedia

Mad Judy

Topics: classic

When the hamlet hailed a birth      Judy used to cry:     When she heard our christening mirth      She would kneel and sigh.     She was crazed, we knew, and we     Humoured her infirmity.     When the daughters and the sons      Gathered them to wed,     And we like-intending ones      Danced till dawn was red,     She would rock and mutter, "More     Comers to this stony shore!"     When old Headsman Death laid hands      On a babe or twain,     She would feast, and by her brands      Sing her songs again.     What she liked we let her do,     Judy was insane, we knew.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"When the hamlet hailed a birth..."

"Mad Judy" is a quintessential example of Thomas Hardy's signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"There was a singing woman     Came riding across the mead     At the time of the mild May weather,      Tameless, tireless;     This song she"

"(M. H. 1772-1857)     She told how they used to form for the country dances -      "The Triumph," "The New-rigged Ship" -     To the light of th"

"What did it mean that noontide, when     You bade me pluck the flower     Within the other woman's bower,     Whom I knew nought of then?"

"Some say the spot is banned; that the pillar Cross-and-Hand      Attests to a deed of hell;     But of else than of bale is the mystic tale"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"There was a singing woman     Came riding across t..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.