echoic

Updated: June 22, 2025

Guardian sound of the South Seas it is, the hushed, echoic roar of a Jovian organ that chants of the dangers of the sea without, and the peace of the lagoon within, the reef. A stretch of houses showed the warehouses and shops of the merchants along the beach, the spire of a church, a line of wharf, a hundred tiny homes all but hidden in the foliage of the ferns.

Frederick O'Brien - Mystic Isles of the South Seas.

The confusion of sound which our critic complains of is not to be remedied merely by silencing the chorus of echoic voices. If we dropped from consideration all but poets of unquestionable merit, we should not be more successful in detecting a single clear note, binding all their voices together.

Elizabeth Atkins - The Poet's Poet : essays on the character and mission of the poet as interpreted in English verse of the last one hundred and fifty years