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.       O God! can I not grasp    Them with a tighter clasp?    O God! can I not save    One from the pitiless wave?      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!    Is all that we see or seem    But a dream within a dream?