What Poe Didn't Know: An Answer To A Dream Within A Dream

I took your kiss upon the brow!
And, in not parting from the Now
Thus much let me avow -
You were not wrong, to deem
That your days have been a dream;
But, if hope has flown away
It alights upon another day,
And if in your vision you have none
Is it thereby forever gone?
All that we see or seem
Is yet, a dream within a dream.

You stood amid the roar
Of your own tormented shore,
And held within your hand
Those grains of golden sand -
"How few!" we heard you weep
With seas of sand beneath your feet,
And yet you weep – and yet you weep!
My God! why do you vainly grasp
What must defy our mortal clasp?
My God! why do you seek to save
The very sand that fills your grave?
If all that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream,
Perhaps the answer you should seek
Is who we are, when not asleep!


Inspired by: A Dream Within A Dream, by: Edgar Allan Poe
Received (and written) by: Joseph E. Duncan III (March 2011)