Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ICARUS (TO THE LATE WOODROW WILSON), by EARL BOWMAN MARLATT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ICARUS (TO THE LATE WOODROW WILSON), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Icarus made himself wings
Last Line: Icarus made himself wings.
Subject(s): Icarus; Mythology - Classical; Wilson, Woodrow (1856-1924)


Icarus made himself wings
To baffle a Minotaur.

Icarus made himself wings
And fastened them with wax
To his lithe young body,
To his white young shoulders.

Icarus rose on wax-joined wings --
Above the labyrinth,
Above the Minotaur --
Into the farthest blue.

Icarus saw the patch-work world at his feet
And watched it fade away . . .
Daring to fare on skyey pilgrimage,
To dream
Of brotherhood with the sun.

Icarus outstripped the clouds.
Icarus scaled the swart palisades of the sun,
Only to wince as scorching wax
Blackened his white young shoulders,
As loosened wings swished futilely
Along his lithe young body.
Icarus clutched at the sun
And fell --
The dream-light frozen in his eyes --
Tortured,
Seared
Through clinging veils of cloud
And shrouding weariness,
Into sepulchral foam . . .
Green gloaming . . .
Sea-weed and . . . silence.
The sea-gulls battened on his corse
And screeched
When the bone-dust tickled their throats.
And serpents played hide-and-seek
Through his skull.

But the West Wind,
Blowing,
Sowing,
Scattered the fragments of a dream
Over the furrowed sea.

Icarus made himself wings.





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