TO-NIGHT I took a key consumed with rust
And turned it in a lock of my own mind
Peering within, to see if all were still;
But, as I stood, a gust
Of memory blew, clanging the gate behind,
Penning me in a city blind and shrill
Wherein I passed with fear,
Well-knowing that I should meet.
You in that windy street.

Then you came nigh,
And, until day, we leaned within the door
Of that locked region desolate,
Probing our ancient quarrel to the core,
How this was torn and that was turned to hate,
In tearless slow debate.
But what we said I did not understand.
Your cold hand slanted by
In dark air: suddenly
I felt the pulses beating in your hand.

O hate, like love, most pitiful and void,
How long we hear
At night some naked eddy of your strife
Sweep cities half-destroyed,
And at the gate your fleshy shapes appear;
How long we feel your body in the life
Nor know what Dante knew, whose feet
Weighed on those souls in the eternal sleet
And on their touchless human dress, —
And trod on husks of emptiness.