A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

          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?


Imitation by Edgar Allan Poe

A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride -
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision of my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it passed on:
I care not though it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.