Dream With A Dream

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?

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!

Oh God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

Oh God!

Can I not save One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?