A Dream Within a Dream

Haze by Neha

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?

- Edgar Allan Poe

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;--

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love--

I and my Annabel Lee--

With a love that the wingéd seraphs in Heaven

Coveted her and me.

.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her high-born kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre,

In this kingdom by the sea.

.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me--

Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we--

Of many far wiser than we--

And neither the angels in Heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

.

For the moon never beams,

without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise,

but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea--

In her tomb by the sounding sea.