Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “To --- [A Dream within a Dream]” (Text-06b), Richmond Examiner proof sheets, about September 1849


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To ——

Take this kiss upon thy brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow —

You are not wrong, to 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?


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Notes:

This text is from proof sheets prepared in September 1849 for a series of issues of the Richmond Examiner.


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[S:1 - REPS, 1849 (Whitty, 1911, p. 123)] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - To —— [A Dream within a Dream] (Text-08)