A Dream Within A Dream, by Edgar Allan Poe →

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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?

Analysis of Poem

By “a dream within a dream”, Poe describes that neither one of those dreams is more real than the other. He adds and implies that in life all we see, or seem to see, is nothing more than a dream within a dream.

The overall messages is the poets doubt and uncertainty about the nature of reality, questioning whether life itself is just an illusion.

This picture should be labeled fantasy and seems to be a dream within a dream.