“They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.”

—  Andrew Lang

Sonnet The Odyssey (1879), in Introduction to his translation (with S. H. Butcher) of Homer's Odyssey.

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 "They hear like ocean on a western beach The surge and thunder of the Odyssey." by Andrew Lang?
Andrew Lang photo
Andrew Lang10
Scots poet, novelist and literary critic 1844–1912

Related quotes

“People lose their senses at the beach 'cause the sun beats down too hard. They say things that just don't gel, you know. Well, you've heard this a lot: "Pick up a shell - oh, you can hear the ocean!" You could pick up a bicycle and hear the ocean - you're at the beach. Put the shell down, you'll hear the ocean twice as loud.”

Elayne Boosler (1952) American comedian

Reported in Cader Books, That's Really Funny!: Over 1,000 More Great Jokes from Today's Hottest Comedians (2000), p. 164.

Henry David Thoreau photo

“My life is like a stroll upon the beach,
As near the ocean's edge as I can go.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

The Fisher's Boy, Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900

Charles Henry Webb photo

“I send thee a shell from the ocean-beach;
But listen thou well, for my shell hath speech.
Hold to thine ear
And plain thou'lt hear
Tales of ships.”

Charles Henry Webb (1834–1905) American poet

With a Nantucket Shell, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Gather a shell from the strewn beach / And listen at its lips: they sigh / The same desire and mystery, / The echo of the whole sea's speech", Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Sea Hints; The hollow sea-shell, which for years hath stood / On dusty shelves, when held against the ear / Proclaims its stormy parent, and we hear / The faint, far murmur of the breaking flood. / We hear the sea. The Sea? It is the blood / In our own veins, impetuous and near", Eugene Lee-Hamilton, Sonnet. Sea-shell Murmurs'.

Ogden Nash photo

“How pleasant to sit on the beach,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun,
With ocean galore within reach,
And nothing at all to be done!.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Many Long Years Ago (1945), Pretty Halcyon Days

Alexander Maclaren photo

“The never-ceasing boom of the great ocean as it breaks on the beach, drowns all smaller sounds.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 277.

Anne Brontë photo

“I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray;
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing,
And hear the wild roar of their thunder today!”

Anne Brontë book Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day (1842)

Anna Akhmatova photo

“You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: "she wanted storms.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Variant: You will hear thunder and remember me,
and think: she wanted storms...

Isaac Newton photo

“To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

James Thomson (poet) photo

“Or where the Northern ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thulè, and th' Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.”

James Thomson (poet) The Seasons

Source: The Seasons (1726-1730), Autumn (1730), l. 871-874.

Sri Aurobindo photo

“If India is to survive, she must be made young again. Rushing and billowing streams of energy must be poured into her; her soul must become, as it was in the old times, like the surges, vast, puissant, calm or turbulent at will, an ocean of action or of force.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Bhawani Mandir, 1905
India's Rebirth

Related topics