Edgar Allen 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?

The poem is 24 lines, divided into two stanzas. The poem questions the way one can
distinguish between reality and fantasy, asking, "Is all that we see or seem but a
dream within a dream?" ( wiki)
Although the two stanzas are not identical in length, their similar use of an iambic
rhythm and of couplets and triplets in their end rhyme scheme creates a pattern that
matches the parallel of their ideas. In particular, the refrain (repeated) lines "All that we
see or seem/Is but a dream within a dream" unite the passages in the poem's conclusion
of futility and regret at the movement of time. Poe draws attention to "all that we see or
seem" with alliteration, and we can view this phrase as the combination of two aspects of

reality, where "all that we see" is the external and "all that we seem" is the internal
element. By asserting that both sides are the also alliterative phrase "a dream within a
dream," Poe suggests that neither is more real than a dream.

"A Dream Within a Dream" deals most specifically with the troubling idea that reality
is impermanent and nothing more than a dream, as the narrator first parts from his
lover and then struggles with his inability to grasp the nature of an evanescent
reality.
The narrator kisses the listener in parting. He tells the listener that he agrees that his life
has been a dream, but he suggests that everything "is but a dream within a dream." He
stands on the shore of the ocean, holding grains of sand as he cries. He cannot keep the
sand from running out of his hand, and he wonders if he cannot save even one grain
from the surf.
Analysis:
The structure of "A Dream Within a Dream" consists of two stanzas containing two
disparate but ultimately connected scenes. The first stanza shows the first-person point
of view of the narrator parting from a lover, while the second places the narrator on a
beach while futilely attempting to grasp a handful of sand in his hand. The juxtaposed
scenes contrast in a number of ways, as the poem moves from a calm, though solemn,
farewell to a more passionate second half. Whereas the first stanza features a thoughtful
agreement, the seashore scene contains expletives such as "O God!" and anguished
exclamations along with despairing rhetorical questions to reflect the torment in the
narrator's soul.
Despite the apparent differences between the two stanzas, they are linked through the
ironic similarity of their evanescent natures. In the first image, the narrator is leaving his
lover, indicating a sense of finality (and mortality) to their love. Accordingly, the falling
grains of sand in the second stanza recall the image of an hourglass, which in turn
represents the passage of time. As the sand flows away until all time has passed, the
lovers' time also disappears, and the sand and the romance each turn into impressions
from a dream. Through the alliteration in "grains of the golden sand," Poe emphasizes
the "golden" or desired nature of both the sand and of love, but he shows clearly that
neither is permanently attainable.
Like many of Poe's poems, "A Dream Within a Dream" uses the sea as a setting for a
discussion of death and decay. "The City in the Sea" illustrates the imagery of a pitiless
sea most clearly, with the Gothic allusions to the end of time, and in "A Dream Within a
Dream", the "surf-tormented shore" becomes a second metaphor for time, as the waters
of the sea slowly but inexorably pound away at the physical existence of the shore. The
narrator regards the wave as "pitiless," but he further associates himself with the
temporal nature of the water by weeping in tandem with the falling of the sand.
Although the two stanzas are not identical in length, their similar use of an iambic
rhythm and of couplets and triplets in their end rhyme scheme creates a pattern that

matches the parallel of their ideas. In particular, the refrain lines "All that we see or
seem/Is but a dream within a dream" unite the passages in the poem's conclusion of
futility and regret at the movement of time. Poe draws attention to "all that we see or
seem" with alliteration, and we can view this phrase as the combination of two aspects of
reality, where "all that we see" is the external and "all that we seem" is the internal
element. By asserting that both sides are the also alliterative phrase "a dream within a
dream," Poe suggests that neither is more real than a dream.
As the title, the phrase "a dream within a dream" has a special significance to any
interpretations of the poem. Poe takes the idea of a daydream and twists it so that the
narrator's perception of reality occurs at two degrees of detachment away from reality.
Consequently, this reality reflects upon itself through the dream medium, and the
narrator can no longer distinguish causality in his perception. By showing the narrator's
distress at his observations, Poe magnifies the risks of uncertainty and of the potential
changes to his identity. Time is a powerful but mysterious force that promotes cognitive
dissonance between the protagonist's self and his abilities of comprehension, and the
daydream proves to have ensnared him. Alternatively, the poem itself may be viewed as
the outermost dream, where the inner dream is merely a function of the narrator's mind
1. Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
A Dream Within a Dream
The narrator of "A Dream Within a Dream" first calmly asserts this conclusion
in the form of a statement, in which he agrees with his lover that reality is
merely a dream; here in his second iteration of the refrain, he rephrases his
sentence into a question as he searches for an alternative explanation to his
belief. The quote suggests that the narrator's reality is not permanent and is
instead doomed to fade away into the merciless, obliterating sea next to the
"surf-tormented shore." The phrase "a dream within a dream" also implies a
second layer of illusion separating "all that we see," the external reality, and
"all that we . . . seem," the internal reality, from the objective truth. The
repetition of the phrase in both stanzas also serves to join the apparently
disparate scenes into a thematically unified whole while contributing to the
musicality of the poem through alliteration as well as internal rhyme