when beauty becomes extravagant

In these times of sadness and woe
as measured by remorse,
as on parlous seas,
imagine that you have lived on a tugboat
for many years,
on, say, Cayuga Lake, year-round,
for even when the lake freezes over,
there are many square miles of open water
in which
to sail and drift.
A woodstove within, by which
you drink coffee and read and write
and out the porthole espy
the hills that form your home Ithaca.
Port.

By which we know that once were written
novels of surpassing beauty:

"Joan’s martinis were made according to a recipe that no one else ever discovered. Even Bruce had never found out how she built them. They were better than any other drink that has ever been tasted by sea or land. They were freezing cold, they were strong, they were subtly scented, yet they did not, like so many special martinis, produce instantaneous paralysis or coma after one had imbibed the third glassful in succession. Instead, they produced euphoria, which in turn led into hilaritas, joyful contemplation and delight. They sprung each individual brain cell into something very like that “undifferentiated aesthetic continuum” of which Professor Northrop has writer. Simply holding a glass which contained this fluid had an immediate effect upon the person holding it: he would smile, quite unconsciously, as if in anticipation of his coming translation."