The Beggars Of Benidorm Market

Nightfall, cold eye - neither disheartens
 These goatish tragedians who
 Hawk misfortune like figs and chickens
 And, plaintiff against each day, decry
 Nature's partial, haphazard thumb.
 Under white wall and Moorish window
 Grief's honest grimace, debased by time,
 Caricatures itself and thrives
 Extorting pity's coin. At random
 A beggar stops among eggs and loaves,
 Props a leg-stump upon a crutch,
 Jiggles his tin cup at the goodwives.
 By lack and loss these beggars encroach
 On spirits tenderer than theirs,
 Suffering-toughened beyond the fetch
 Of finest conscience.
 Nightfall obscures
 The bay's sheer, extravagant blue,
 White house and almond grove. The beggars
 Outlast their evilest star, wryly
 And with a perfidious verve
 Baffle the dark, the pitying eye.