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A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

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—

— The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe, by John Ingram