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?
In this poem, one is struck with a sense of instability throughout. Poe is writing of how quickly things pass, and how hard it is to hold on to them. In one line he says “Can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp?” Here he implies how he cannot hold onto anything good or bad, because it slips away no matter what. It is not written with sadness, but more of a frustration, not quite a lament. He says “my days have been a dream,” meaning everything passes with little or no reality. This poem is rather short, with a simple rhyme and meter of AABBCCDD…etc. The language is a bit flowery, but appropriate for the time and it still brings across the intended message of nothing with substance.
-Comments by Katie Schlosser
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