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?

Representative of Poe's later work, "A Dream Within a Dream" is a revised version of a poem Poe originally composed in the 1820s. It is considered one of the poet's finest shorter poems. In an article published in 1849, Poe wrote, "It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream."