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?