A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM 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?. 1849 TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW) Of all who hail thy presence as the morning— Of all to whom thine absence is the night— The blotting utterly from out high heaven The sacred sun—of all who, weeping, bless thee Hourly for hope—for life—ah! above all, For the resurrection of deep-buried faith In Truth—in Virtue—in Humanity— Of all who, on Despair’s unhallowed bed Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen At thy soft-murmured words, “Let there be light!” At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes— Of all who owe thee most—whose gratitude Nearest resembles worship—oh, remember The truest—the most fervently devoted, And think that these weak lines are written by him— By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think His spirit is communing with an angel’s. 1847. TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)