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.
  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?

1849.