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?