Attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1655, oil on panel, 2' 5" x 3' 8", Royal Museum of Fine Arts Belgium, Brussels, Image in the Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1655, oil on panel, 2' 5

Bruegel, Williams and Hubris

22 Aug ’17

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

by

William Carlos Williams (1962)

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