Famous Icarus Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Icarus poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous icarus poems. These examples illustrate what a famous icarus poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Aiken, Conrad
...rning
when thunder struck at seven, and in the bay
the meteor made its dive, and shed its wings,
and with them one more Icarus? Where struck
that lightning-stroke which in your sleep you saw
wrinkling across the eyelid? Somewhere else?
But somewhere else is always here and now.
Each moment crawls that lightning on your eyelid:
each moment you must die. It was a tree
that this time died for you: it was a rock
and with it all its local web of love:
a chimney, spilling d...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...t through the sun
pierces old canopies revealing
heights that have never been deemed
then to be up and away forgetting
icarus has been there before us
white heat is the worst of all fires
we’re dust before the dream’s gone cold
there’s no bird doesn’t need its tree
with its leaden roots buried in earth
and the earth needs its water - all
things that fly with their fine-pointed rage
must have cool fruits to come down to
before ecstasy and soaring can yield
the unimaginable ...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...d upon that flowerless mead.
Too venturous poesy, O why essay
To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings
O'er daring Icarus and bid thy lay
Sleep hidden in the lyre's silent strings
Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,
Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's golden quid!
Enough, enough that he whose life had been
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
Could in the loveless land of Hades glean
One scorching harvest from those fields of flame
Where pass...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...my life's rubbing-out
of my dreams
i’ll jump from the window
(i sang to myself)
and i'll fly
and be damned to daft icarus
i crowed
and i flew - or i fled (which is
very much the same grain of word
and it graciously covers the gap
between the experience i had in my head
and the one i met rushing up
from the ground where the glasshouse
splashed around to reflect me
as i passed on my way down to earth
and the squirt of my dad's best tomatoes
and my mum's angry mask of a ...Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...ech wreck on wall street,
and as I look out the window
almost any minute I expect
the brokers to fall from the sky
like Icarus in Brughel's painting in
Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts"
(and so back to work)...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...e knack of pecking
where there's malice - it grows two heads
winners by their nature soon become
winged and weighted - icarus begins
to prey upon their waking dreams
prometheus gnawed by eagles
the tight-shut box epimetheus
gave pandora about to burst
apart - yeats's centre cannot hold
being poets they know the references
and they learn the lesson quickly
climb upon others as they would
climb on you - in short be ruthless
or be dead they mostly fade away
being too intact ...Read more of this...
by
McHugh, Heather
...voluble?too much a word-person?
I blame the soup:I'm a primordially
stirred person.
Two pronouns and a vehicle was Icarus with wings.
The apparatus of his selves made an ab-
surd person.
The sound I make is sympathy's:sad dogs are tied afar.
But howling I become an ever more un-
heard person.
I need a hundred more of you to make a likelihood.
The mirror's not convincing-- that at-best in-
ferred person.
As time's revealing gets revolting, I sta...Read more of this...
by
Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...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...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...now they've wrapped me in like a nun.
Burst like firecrackers! Held like stones!
What a feat sailing queerly like Icarus
until the tempest undid me and I broke.
The ambulance drivers made such a fuss.
But when I cried, "Wait for my courage!" they smoked
and then they placed me, tied me up on their plate,
and wheeled me out to their coffin, my nest.
Slowly the siren slowly the hearse, sedate
as a dowager. At the E. W. they cut off my dress.
...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wintgs on,
testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade,
and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn
of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made!
There below are the trees, as awkward as camels;
and here are the shocked starlings pumping past
and think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well:...Read more of this...
by
Benet, Stephen Vincent
...tes in the wine of morning, specks in a crystal cup,
And lest his wings should melt apace old Daedalus flies low,
But Icarus beats up, beats up, he goes where lightnings go.
He cares no more for warnings, he rushes through the sky,
Braving the crags of ether, daring the gods on high,
Black 'gainst the crimson sunset, golden o'er cloudy snows,
With all Adventure in his heart the first winged man arose.
Dropping gold, dropping gold, where the mists of morning r...Read more of this...
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