Edgar Allan Poe

A Dream Within A Dream

Summary

The poem reflects on the nature of reality and the fleeting nature of life and our experiences. It is divided into two stanzas, with the first expressing a farewell and an introspective acknowledgment that life's events might be nothing more than ephemeral dreams. The narrator questions the permanence and reality of hopes and experiences, suggesting they might be insubstantial. In the second stanza, the narrator stands on a tumultuous shore, holding grains of sand that slip away despite desperate attempts to hold them, symbolizing the inevitable passage of time and the inability to retain moments or control fate. The poem concludes by reiterating the idea that everything we perceive might be just a dream within another dream, leaving the central theme open for contemplation and emphasizing the existential dilemma of discerning reality from illusion.

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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?

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