Probably the most famous
onomatopoeiac line in
English Verse, "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" comes from
Matthew Arnold's poem
Dover Beach. It refers to Arnold's metaphor of the "sea of faith", which he perceives to be retreating as
science undermines
faith.
Dover Beach was published in 1867, the same year that
Karl Marx's
Das Kapital was published, and the nation of
Canada was confederated.
It should be noted that
onomatopoeia does not only refer to Batmanisms like 'Boff' and 'Crash', but to any word of phrase who's sound re-enforces its meaning. This includes the extended, longing tone of "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" or the military repetition of "generations have trod, have trod, have trod" in
Gerard Manley Hopkins’
God's Grandeur.