A Dream Within a Dream

¹Take this kiss upon the brow!

²And, in parting from you now,

³Thus much let me avow —

⁴You are not wrong, who deem

⁵That my days have been a dream;

⁶Yet if hope has flown away

⁷In a night, or in a day,

⁸In a vision, or in none,

⁹Is it therefore the less gone?

¹⁰All that we see or seem

¹¹Is but a dream within a dream.

¹²I stand amid the roar

¹³Of a surf-tormented shore,

¹⁴And I hold within my hand

¹⁵Grains of the golden sand —

¹⁶How few! yet how they creep

¹⁷Through my fingers to the deep,

¹⁸While I weep — while I weep!

¹⁹O God! Can I not grasp

²⁰Them with a tighter clasp?

²¹O God! can I not save

²²One from the pitiless wave?

²³Is all that we see or seem

²⁴But a dream within a dream?