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About this quote

What does it mean?
A man died in his sleep and a sexton rang the bell.
In plain terms
A person died young and the church bell rang.
What can you take from it?
Death is marked simply by a bell tolling.

Where it applies

  • funerals
  • community notification

Putting it to work

  • studying elegiac poetry
  • analyzing death rituals

Questions to consider

  • What marks a life ended?

Another view

It simplifies death into a mechanical event.

More from Thomas Hood

  1. I remember, I remember The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon Nor brought too long …

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  2. I remember, I remember The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky: It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis li…

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  3. And there is ev'n a happiness That makes the heart afraid!

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