Skip to content
Linespedia

By The Barrows

Topics: classic

Not far from Mellstock - so tradition saith -     Where barrows, bulging as they bosoms were     Of Multimammia stretched supinely there,     Catch night and noon the tempest's wanton breath,     A battle, desperate doubtless unto death,     Was one time fought. The outlook, lone and bare,     The towering hawk and passing raven share,     And all the upland round is called "The He'th."     Here once a woman, in our modern age,     Fought singlehandedly to shield a child -     One not her own - from a man's senseless rage.     And to my mind no patriots' bones there piled     So consecrate the silence as her deed     Of stoic and devoted self-unheed.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Not far from Mellstock - so tradition saith -..."

"By The Barrows" 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.