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?
11 comments:
I took my children some years ago down to visit the Edgar Allan Poe House in Philadelphia. Afterwards we had lunch an old historic tavern noted for its hauntings. I have a picture of a ghostly hovering spot that appears between my children and our waiter.
The day is remembered as a dream within a dream and a chance to believe in the unbelievable.
Excellent selection.
Marion, I sure hope not, but then does it really matter at all? If we are all within some huge universal hallucination then let it be a good long one. And someone please bring Doritos. I get the munchies when I hallucinate!
Much love to you under your cat blanket today. Press your nose against the glass for me and enjoy that rain.
xo!
erin
I love Poe and this is one of my favorites!! Can't read it anymore without hearing in my head the Alan Parsons Project "Tales of Mystery & Imagination" music that is based on Poe's works.
Our state of reality is often not graspable, but immensely and intensely felt. For me, this is the dream within a dream; this is the reality of evasiveness, the "seeing through the glass darkly." Seeing (dreaming) is not believing or knowing. Thank you for this selection, Marion. Peace and love to you.
Did you make that collage, is it a digital work, right?
i love it!
Dearest Edgar,
I love you.
I've always been a fan of Poe. Read an interesting biography about him this summer: POE, A LIFE CUT SHORT by Peter Ackroyd.
Hi Marion~ I adore that image! Great find! And I think that a lot of wonderful stuff in our lives--love, imagination, feelings--are illusions, but if we didn't have them what kind of bland, ordinary, boring world would we be living in? Be kinder to yourself, Edgar! xx
I wish I had written Kay's comment!
I love this poem and especially the imagery of the grains of sand slipping through his fingers. What a writer he was.
This has always been one of my favourites (if I allow myself to have favourites). Beautiful, you.
I've always loved Poe, and always will. Terrific poem.
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