i

Take this kiss upon your 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?