Dream Within a Dream - Elysian Fields

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 seen

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

Bu a dream within a dream?