The speaker drifts through a night in a blurry, half-focused state. Street lights spot the walls, dim bulbs waver up a stairway, and crumpled napkins stained with Chinese port sauce remind him of an earlier meal that already feels far away. Outside, yellow-green leaves lie in the gutter. Everything is small, shabby, and slightly sickly, seen the way a drunk person notices things: in scattered pieces.
Then the mood turns. He calls people "lovely" who make no demands, neither friend nor family, which suggests he feels worn down by obligation, or perhaps lonely enough to want simple company. The ending is the sharpest moment. He admits he never bicycled through France in his late twenties, so he never felt "that sweet anticipation / of a life to come." It reads as quiet regret. The drunkenness loosens him up enough to say plainly what he feels he missed, and the tone is wistful rather than dramatic.