EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849)
A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
1 Take this kiss upon the brow!
2 And, in parting from you now,
3 Thus much let me avow--
4 You are not wrong, who deem
5 That my days have been a dream;
6 Yet if hope has flown away
7 In a night, or in a day,
8 In a vision, or in none,
9 Is it therefore the less gone?
10 All that we see or seem
11 Is but a dream within a dream.
12 I stand amid the roar
13 Of a surf-tormented shore,
14 And I hold within my hand
15 Grains of the golden sand--
16 How few! yet how they creep
17 Through my fingers to the deep,
18 While I weep--while I weep!
19 O God! can I not grasp
20 Them with a tighter clasp?
21 O God! can I not save
22 One from the pitiless wave?
23 Is all that we see or seem
24 But a dream within a dream?
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