Edgar Allan Poe's Work

A Dream Within a Dream

Edgar Allan 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?

 I became interested in the American poet-author Edgar Allan Poe after being introduced in class that he may have introduced short stories, so I chose one of his poems and read "A Dream Within a Dream". The poem seems to be about the speaker's sadness and despair after the loss of a dear person. Renowned for literary techniques, Poe displays many literary devices. Rhymes are used in every line of the poem(brow-now-avow, roar-shore, hand-sand, and so on). Metaphor, personification and irony occasionally appear. I think "the golden sand" in fourth line of the second stanza means clock, and "shore" and "wave" are personified because a shore cannot "torment" surf and a wave be "pitiless". Irony is used when it is said that "grains of golden sand" are few. The repetition of couplets emphasizes the narrator's opinion that life is pointless. I am very impressed with Poe's ability to use all kinds of literary devices in such a short poem while conveying emotion.