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 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?