A Dream Within A Dream

A Dream Within A Dream by 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?

When I googled this poem under images, it's amazing how many pictures of tattoos popped up with the last two lines. Reading the title automatically makes me think of the movie Inception because of its plot of going into peoples's dreams. This is something people always think about, what if our lives are just a dream and nothing is real. It's one of those questions you could sit around and ponder for hours and never convince yourself of either answer because how are we to know for sure with so many unexplained mysteries in the universe. It really is a poem to get students thinking.