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A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Analysis

"A Dream Within A Dream" is a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe. It was written during the year of Poe's death. It asks the quesiton if life is real or simply a dream. It dramatizes his life at the time as he watched his life slip away. The "golden sand" referenced in the poem is because of the discovery of gold in California.

This is one of Poe's most famous works. Unlike his other great works, it is short and concise. It is made up of only two stanzas with one having eleven lines and the other thirteen. The rhyme schemes are back-to-back and sometimes back-to-back-to-back (three in row).

Poem

A Dream Within A Dream
By 

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?

Written in .
Next: A Valentine

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Nationality
American

Literary Movement
Romanticism, 19th Century

Subjects
Life, Dream