The dark gray receding tide uncovers
New reaches of white sand, and underfoot 
Dry bony driftwood moves into the shade

Reflected horribly in the grand piano,
the sky is offered up as your accompanist.
You pick out a melody with one hand,

These cliffs, how glorious, Helen! We have driven 
Along this route together often enough 
Not to have missed this spot before, or given 

The first Tuesday in this warm November
brushes Long Island in a last caress
before winter repels our communities

To sing old songs to little children in
A foreign language made intime thereby;
To pose a riddle, putting one more spin

The silly fish deceived him
As he approached the creel:
He thought the whole thing real

Cast from a simile of Paul of Tarsus
Thence depicted as an anchor (ancora
Speme—there’s still hope—get it?) and by suchlike

Ruins are what we make of them, and wrecked 
Imaginations could want to do so little 
With any real rubble. Acres of crumbled bricks,

Once, but once, did I fail my Muse, who, lying
(Golden-shadowed shape) by the flaring candle,
Urged me upward. But there was more to dying

“Mère d’amour et fille de la Mer!”
Over the golden ocean waves of hair
Plunge, bright with her origin, where we