Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ICARUS, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ICARUS, by                    
First Line: Impetuous, ocean winds whipping his sun-bright hair, what man with
Last Line: Doth stand forevermore upraised towards the azure of the sky.
Subject(s): Icarus; Love; Mythology - Classical


Impetuous, ocean winds whipping his sun-bright hair, what man with dauntless
feet thus spurneth vertigo. His long, triumphant shout enwreaths the vales below
with circling echoes long, swirled down through eddying air.

Aurora, has some soul escaped hell's scarlet mesh? What man with two gold wings
dares heaven's uncharted ways? Shouting he traverses a sky the hue of flesh that
emerald-glinting dawn with laurels fair doth glaze.

He soars. The sun appears. He gains its aureate glows, with rays like golden
plumes enrobed resplendently. Piercing them with his wings, more swiftly still
he goes. His image and his shade attend him o'er the sea.

He mounts, he runs, he swims the far aethereal meres, sporting and rolling
there. What man and bird have mated? Backward he plunges down. 'Tis azure sky! O
spheres! . . . His shoulder has, through space, more largely palpitated.

How soft the yielding blue! What matter though he falls? Like water's flow his
flight ascends a gentle hill. He traverses, he tears the tempests' azure grill,
and laughs at having wrecked those fragile prison walls.

Earth watches. One faint spark still shines uncertainly, one golden point that
fades where dusky swallows flit. Seeking his image vague down heaven's swift-
deepening pit, he laughs at Icarus decreasing on the sea.

He laughs, he flies, he mounts, he laughs, he has wide wings. For his delight
the air he conquers. Mild and meek about his shining limbs the gentle azure
clings and amorously rubs his shoulder and his cheek.

Earth and mankind pursued in exultation fond, men's eyes and mountain crests.
The force of one, alone, O love! inertia's sway has vanquished and o'erthrown,
and the sea, that mirrors him, has risen, vagabond.

New mountain ranges rise created in a cry. Earth speaks and heaves. The oaks,
the granite cliffs profound, the heathery plateaus where Titan midnights lie,
are its voice. O speak, ye plains, shaping yourselves with sound.

And men in myriads rise to emulation stirred. Standing, high pinnacled, on the
precipice's rim, uplifting eyes and arms towards that bold human bird they feel
their foreheads' veins pulse with their love for him.

Yet Icarus flies on. It suits his pleasure well. He would find whence fire first
came to kindle human clods, see, as medusas dim appear on ocean's swell from
azure depths emerge the faces of the gods.

What does he come to gain? He fain would know. He loves. What would he
undertake? He would see, the more to prize. What waits behind the blue? The
deities one loves? "If 'tis but I who pass? If naught is in the skies?"

"Still I am Icarus! If there is only I, I love myself. O then to proclaim to
man, 'My brother, none can blaspheme, except against himself. Great sky, if each
is his own god can men not love each other?'"

-- And his waxen wings were fused. -- O deities barbarous! His perishable wings
Jove's thunder-bolts annul. Go, fall, pursue the storm, return, sweet Icarus! --
Let us mingle tears of love with the drops innumerable.

But thou, Greece, land of gulfs and of wings, O glorious land! limpid with
crystal vales that softly sheltered lie, fairer in pose of faith vertiginous,
doth stand forevermore upraised towards the azure of the sky.





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