A Dream Within a Dream - Edgar Allan Poe

Sometimes our reflections of our own lives can lead us to find surprising things. Some of those things we cherish, some of those things make us feel guilty, some of those things seem like they should've been in someone else's life, not our own. I'm having just such a moment of reflection, so I thought I'd share one of my favorite poems. Enjoy.

A Dream Within a Dream

            By Edgar Allan Poe

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?