'958 Fifteen years between me and the bay Profited memory, but did away with the old scenery And patched this shoddy Makeshift of a view to quit My promise of an idyll, the blue's worn out: It's a niggard estate, Inimical now. The great green rock We gave good use as ship and house is black With tarry muck And periwinkles, shrunk to common Size. The cries of scavenging gulls sound thin In the traffic of planes From Logan Airport opposite. Gulls circle gray under shadow of a steelier flight. Loss cancels profit. Unless you do this tawdry harbor A service and ignore it, I go a liar Gilding what's eyesore, Or must take loophole and blame time For the rock's dwarfed lump, for the drabbled scum, For a churlish welcome.
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T h e Companionable Ills The nose-end that twitches, the old imperfections— Tolerable now as moles on the face Put up with until chagrin gives place To a wry complaisance — Dug in first as God's spurs To start the spirit out of the mud It stabled in; long-used, became well-loved Bedfellows of the spirit's debauch, fond masters. 105