All that we see or seem

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

is but a dream within a dream.