Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
—William Carlos Williams, 1962
By William Carlos Williams, from Collected Poems 1939-1962, Volume II, copyright © 1962 by William Carlos Williams. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Home page image: "Wegbereiter Ikarus," print, woodblock on paper, by Wilhelm Geissler, 1966. (Courtesy NASM)