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 ?

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.