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The day came, and the fair wind that was to set them free. Thefather bird put on his wings, and, while the light urged them tobe gone, he waited to see that all was well with Icarus, for thetwo could not fly hand in hand. Up they rose, the boy after hisfather. The hateful ground of Crete sank beneath them; and thecountry folk, who caught a glimpse of them when they werehigh above the tree-tops, took it for a vision of the gods,--Apollo, perhaps, with Cupid after him.At first there was a terror in the joy. The wide vacancy of theair dazed them,--a glance downward made their brains reel.But when a great wind filled their wings, and Icarus felt himselfsustained, like a halcyon-bird in the hollow of a wave, like achild uplifted by his mother, he forgot everything in the worldbut joy. He forgot Crete and the other islands that he had passedover: he saw but vaguely that winged thing in the distancebefore him that was his father Daedalus. He longed for onedraught of flight to quench the thirst of his captivity: hestretched out his arms to the sky and made towards the highestheavens.Alas for him! Warmer and warmer grew the air. Those arms,that had seemed to uphold him, relaxed. His wings wavered,drooped. He fluttered his young hands vainly,--he wasfalling,--and in that terror he remembered. The heat of the sunhad melted the wax from his wings; the feathers were falling,one by one, like snowflakes; and there was none to help.He fell like a leaf tossed down the wind, down, down, withone cry that overtook Daedalus far away. When he returned,and sought high and low for the poor boy, he saw nothing butthe bird-like feathers afloat on the water, and he knew thatIcarus was drowned.The nearest island he named Icaria, in memory of the child;but he, in heavy grief, went to the temple of Apollo in Sicily,and there hung up his wings as an offering. Never again did heattempt to fly.