by Edgar Allan Poe

 

Take this kss 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 suf-tomented 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 pitless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?