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?