Asleep in his chair the old man lies
His body wearied by age and truth
He inhabits a world behind his eyes
And dwells with companions of his youth

Gone is the shadow-bounded room
Gone the struggling lamplight's glow
Reborn in a world without the gloom
He lives in the world he used to know.

The bright landscape of his youthful stage
Confronts his dreaming eye in fond array
And hungrily he re-reads every page
That charts the journey of his lifetime's play.

In dreams he meets with long dead friends
And lives again each treasured happy hour
He feels no wish to change or make amends
But glories only in his youthful power.

Awake, he sits in silence all alone
The sole survivor of his bygone days
There is no-one to call him on the phone
No-one to really understand his ways.

Why wonder then that he prefers to dream?
When dreaming gives him access to a place
Where he is always held in high esteem
And everyone will recognise his face.

Only in wakefulness do ghosts populate his world
      In dreams, they become real!

                    — © Richard Lamb, May 2008