Thomas Tickell
English poet and man of letters (1685-1740)
Thomas Tickell (December 17, 1685 – April 23, 1740) was a minor English poet and man of letters.
Quotes
edit- Prevent the rising sun.
- Oxford (1707).
- Fight virtue's cause, stand up in wit's defence,
Win us from vice, and laugh us into sense.- On the Prospect of Peace (1713), line 428.
- Achilles' fatal wrath, whence discord rose,
That brought the sons of Greece unnumber'd woes,
O Goddess! sing. Full many a hero's ghost
Was driven untimely to th' infernal coast,
While in promiscuous heaps their bodies lay,
A feast for dogs and every bird of prey.
So did the sire of gods and men fulfil
His stedfast purpose and almighty will;
What time the haughty chiefs their jars begun,
Atrides, king of men, and Peleus' godlike son.- The First Book of the Iliad (1715).
- Just men, by whom impartial laws were given;
And saints who taught and led the way to heaven.- On the Death of Mr. Addison (1721), line 41. The work was an epitath for Tickell's friend and employer, Joseph Addison.
- Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.- On the Death of Mr. Addison (1721), line 45.
- There patient show'd us the wise course to steer,
A candid censor, and a friend severe;
There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.- On the Death of Mr. Addison (1721), line 81. Compare: "He who should teach men to die, would at the same time teach them to live", Michel de Montaigne, Essay, book i. chap. ix.; "I have taught you, my dear flock, for above thirty years how to live; and I will show you in a very short time how to die", Sandys, Anglorum Speculum, p. 903; "Teach him how to live, And, oh still harder lesson! how to die", Beilby Porteus, Death, line 316; "He taught them how to live and how to die", Somerville, In Memory of the Rev. Mr. Moore.
- A snow of blossoms and a wild of flowers.
- Kensington Garden (1722).
- The sweetest garland to the sweetest maid.
- To a Lady with a Present of Flowers.
- though every friend be fled,
Lo! Envy waits, that lover of the dead.- On the Death of the Earl of Cadogan.
- He 'midst the graceful of superior grace,
And she the loveliest of the loveliest race.- Verses to Mrs. Lowther on her Marriage.
- I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.- Colin and Lucy.
