A Dream Within a Dream

Edgar Allan Poe(1809–1849)

The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, 1849

Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow—You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roarOf a surf-tormented shore,And I hold within my handGrains of the golden sand—How few! yet how they creepThrough my fingers to the deep,While I weep—while I weep!O God! can I not graspThem with a tighter clasp?O God! can I not saveOne from the pitiless wave?Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within a dream?

As printed in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (vol. II, 1859), via the English Wikisource transcription.

Public domainThis poem is in the public domain. You may read it, copy it, recite it and publish it without asking anyone.

About the poem

The poem opens with a parting kiss and a doubt that devours everything: if hope has flown «in a night, or in a day», does it matter how it went? «All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream».

In the second stanza the doubt turns into physical anguish: the speaker stands on the shore, grains of golden sand slipping through his fingers into the sea, and however tightly he grips he cannot save even one. The question he began with returns at the end, now with no possible answer. It is one of Poe's last poems, published the year he died.