A DREAM OF JUDGEMENT

Dark of the long grey street (its end unseen);
mist-aureoled lamps, and rain like fuchsia-drops;
bricks like an eczema, sore stone, a mean
ill slype among gnawn tenements and shops.
Strangers unsheltered and unglancing; crawl
of the toad of wind; my lost limp towards the fog:
no movement else: two shall inherit all - 
December and the power of the dog.

Some errand brought me, by some netted way.
Why did I leave you in a firelit room,
naked, and soon to know the crouching play
of one I could have hindered - and for whom?
I follow the street onwards (will it lead
into the next, and rescue?); but I find
walls at my face.  Back the sad miles: no need,
and no flam-gilded flesh: both ends are blind.

Somewhere (oh image, inward lion) you
twist in what frantic sharing shuts me out;
somewhere, and yet (oh lion) if I knew,
doors and the dark, and all that silent shout 
of ecstasy, would rise against me still.

Dreams do not solve so easily: I shall stand 
and search the dream for memory, until
the hunting beast bites at my frozen hand.