                            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?


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