A dream within a dream

              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?
 

                         Edgar Poe