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

Analysis, meaning and summary of William Carlos Williams's poem Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus

3 Comments

  1. David McLaughlin says:

    Compare this poem to that of W H Auden’s poem on the same subject. Two poems which use the painting for strikingly different purposes.

  2. Raman Lakshman says:

    At six feet above m.s.l
    The scope of my sight across seascape
    Ceases at six miles
    Where sea meets sky at the earthends.

    But an inteminable impression
    Of space and distance draws me
    From pasture and plogh and fishing
    To the destinies of my doom.

    R.Lakshman.

  3. Jayme says:

    It is true that we who push the boundaries to be noticed, only can hope that the footprints are not in sand, rather, in concrete, so that all may remember us.

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