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
5 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?
10 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
15Grains 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
20Them 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?
Poe's use personification gives the poem a descriptive nature. He gives hope an animal characteristic of having wings in line 6, " Yet if hope has flown away," saying hope can easily be lost. He gives another animal characteristic to the sound of the waves in line 12, "I satnd amid the roar," to emphasize the how loud the sound is. In line 16, "How few! yet how they creep," gives the image of the sand of creeping instead of simply falling through his fingers. The last quality he gives to an inanimate object is the human trait of being pitiless to the wave in line 22,"One from the pitiless wave?"
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
5 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?
10 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
15Grains 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
20Them 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?
Poe's use personification gives the poem a descriptive nature. He gives hope an animal characteristic of having wings in line 6, " Yet if hope has flown away," saying hope can easily be lost. He gives another animal characteristic to the sound of the waves in line 12, "I satnd amid the roar," to emphasize the how loud the sound is. In line 16, "How few! yet how they creep," gives the image of the sand of creeping instead of simply falling through his fingers. The last quality he gives to an inanimate object is the human trait of being pitiless to the wave in line 22,"One from the pitiless wave?"