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?

     ‘Tis said that when
     The hands of men
     Tamed this primeval wood,
     And hoary trees with groans of woe,
     Like warriors by an unknown foe,
     Were in their strength subdued,
     The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
     To springs that ne’er did flow
     That in the sun Did rivulets run,
     And all around rare flowers did blow
     The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
     And the queenly lily adown the dale
     (Whom the sun and the dew
     And the winds did woo),
     With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

     So when in tears
     The love of years
     Is wasted like the snow,
     And the fine fibrils of its life
     By the rude wrong of instant strife
     Are broken at a blow
     Within the heart
     Do springs upstart
     Of which it doth now know,
     And strange, sweet dreams,
     Like silent streams
     That from new fountains overflow,
     With the earlier tide
     Of rivers glide
     Deep in the heart whose hope has died—
     Quenching the fires its ashes hide,—
     Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
     Sweet flowers, ere long,
     The rare and radiant flowers of song!