“His death which happened in his berth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton tolled the bell.”

— Thomas Hood

Faithless Sally Brown, st. 17 (1826).
1820s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "His death which happened in his berth, At forty-odd befell: They went and told the sexton, and The sexton tolled the…" by Thomas Hood?

Thomas Hood 50

British writer 1799–1845

Related quotes

“That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. And that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. And that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. And that nobody is wished to see my dead body. And that no murners walk behind me at my funeral. And that no flours be planted on my grave. And that no man remember me.”

Thomas Hardy book The Mayor of Casterbridge

Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Ch. 45 (Henchard's will)

“Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

Modern version: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Meditation 17. This was the source for the title of Ernest Hemingway's novel.
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)
Source: Meditation XVII - Meditation 17
Context: No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

“From one bell all the bells toll.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

"The Bell of the Shape," p. 35
The Shape (2000), Sequence: “Bells”

“Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

Source: No man is an island – A selection from the prose

“Beauty is a fading flower,
Truth is but a wizard's tower,
Where a solemn death-bell tolls,
And a forest round it rolls.”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

Epilogue
The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems (1907), The Flower of Old Japan

“By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers”

H. G. Wells book The War of the Worlds

Book II, Ch. 8 (Ch. 25 in editions without Book divisions): Dead London
The War of the Worlds (1898)
Context: For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things — taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many — those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance — our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.