A Dream within a DreamTales of Mystery and ImaginationFor my own part
I have never had a thought
Which I could not set down in words
With even more distinctness
Than that with which I conceived it
There is however a class of fancies
Of exquisite delicacy, which are not thoughts
And to which as yet I have found it
Absolutely impossible to adapt to language
These fancies arise in the soul
Alas how rarely, only at epochs
Of most intense tranquility
When the bodily and mental
Health are in perfection
And at those weird points of time
Where the confines of the waking world
Blend with the world of dreams
And so I captured this fancy
Where all that we see or seem
Is but 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?
Edgar Allan Poe
