A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

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?


     They must have stole the idea for Inception from Edgar Allan Poe.  I mean, come on, a parted love who thinks that their partner is in a dream, a sandy beach, a dream in a dream, what else do you need for proof? In all seriousness this poem is an excellent work.  The words seem to flow like music through the mind when I read them, drawing my focus and letting me paint an imaginary canvas full of enigmas and confusion.  This poem is a testament to Poe's ability to make you question fundamental realities, an ability that helped him pioneer the mystery genre with newer, darker elements.  With the inclusion of a secondary figure to judge the speaker's insanity, Poe sets up the speaker's own doubts about reality.  the imagery of grains of sand falling through someone's grasp is a deft inclusion which, although late in the poem, helps to tear down the barely present structure in the poem's setting, undermining the world that the reader has already created in their mind for the poem. And, in destroying the creation of his own words, Poe allows his audience to fill in the blanks once more, this time with greater depth.  Masterfully written, and thought provoking, "A Dream Within A Dream" is classic Poe.