To —— — reported Examiner text
Edgar Allan Poe
Text attributed to Richmond Examiner proof sheets; available here through J. H. Whitty, The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (1911), p. 123.
Reported proof-sheet text, not a verified surviving original proof scan. The precise 1849 date is uncertain; source pages use August or September. Keep the 1911 witness separate from the claimed 1849 origin.
Take this kiss upon thy brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, to 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?