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

All that we see or seem

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?

End