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?