Poe Fridays: A Dream Within A Dream

Since the inaugural Poe Friday begins with a short poem, "A Dream Within A Dream", here's the entire text:

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?

One of my favorite aspects of Poe's writing is the melodrama. He is apparently the most forlorn man ever to have lived! "O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave?" Poe's life was troubled but much of it was of his own doing. Yet he always blamed outside forces for his problems -- a vindictive editor, an unfriendly creditor, his cold-hearted step-father. I think if he had not died young, he would have been sorely disappointed!

For next week, I'll keep it simple with another poem -- "Annabel Lee".

Until next Poe Friday ... if the dream that is our lives hasn't ended by then,
K