For Annie — manuscript version
Edgar Allan Poe
Manuscript version, reproduced in The Bookman (London), January 1909, vol. 35, no. 208, p. 190.
15-line manuscript version headed For Annie; distinct from Poe’s separate longer poem with the same title. The included image is a 1909 printed facsimile, not the physical manuscript.
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! Oh, God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? Oh, God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that I see or seem But a dream within a dream?