A Dream Within a Dream - Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 - 1849

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

You are not wrong who deem

Thus much let me avow:

Yet if hope has flown away

That my days have been a dream;

Is it therefore the less gone?

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

I stand amid the roar

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.


Grains of the golden sand

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

How few! yet how they creep 

Them with a tighter clasp?

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep--while I weep!

O God! can I not save

O God! can I not grasp

But a dream within a dream?

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem