a dream within a dream

Nikon D80 | 1/640 seconds | f 4.8 | ISO 125 | 38 mm
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 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?

A Dream Within a Dream. 1849. Edgar Allan Poe