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?