A dream within a dream

Take this kiss upon the brow
And in parting from you now
Thus much let me avow
You're 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

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

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 we see or seem but a dream within 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