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 save
One
from
the pitiless wave?
Is all
that
we see or seem
But a
dream within a dream?