Never Blush to Dream

Never Blush to Dream

Original Text

Last Makings: Poems by Earle Birney (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1991): 91-92. PS 8503 I75L38 1991 Robarts Library

to a melody in the "Chrysanthemum Rag" of Scott Joplin
1
2a lost love
3slides into your bed again
4there's no treason
5though the blood stirs
6when a stranger speaks his name
7each lover keeps the home
8he made within your mind
9and has a key
10to lie with you unbidden
11so long as you are holding
12gentle thoughts of him
2
13never feel a guilt
14to hear me
15whisper still within the night
16old loves lurk in eyes
17that brighten
18to the new enchanter's sight
19i too must rise from warmth
20to drift with other ghosts
21from worldly view
22yet i'll come into your bed
23some night again
24and dream myself alive in you

Notes

1] "Chrysanthemum Rag" of Scott Joplin: African-American ragtime composer (1868-1917). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Special Copyright

© the Estate of Earle Birney. This poem is protected by Canadian copyright law. RPO is grateful to Madam Justice Wailan Low, the executor of Earle Birney's literary estate, for permission to publish. Anyone wishing to reprint this poem must seek permission in advance from the Birney estate.