Take this kiss upon the brow

And in parting from you now

This 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?

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?