Haymaking

William Carlos Williams

The living quality of
the man's mind
stands out

and its covert assertions
for art, art, art!
painting

that the Renaissance
tried to absorb
but

it remained a wheat field
over which the
wind played

men with scythes tumbling
the wheat in
rows

the gleaners already busy
it was his ownÑ
magpies

the patient horses no one
could take that
from him

Pieter Brueghel, Haymaking (1565)

Oil on canvas, approximately 46 inches x 63 inches. National Gallery, Prague.


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