A Dream Within a Dream

BY: EDGAR ALLAN POE

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?