A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

1. 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?

2. Analysis: The structure of "A Dream Within a Dream" consists of two stanzas containing two disparate but ultimately connected scenes. The first stanza shows the first-person point of view of the narrator parting from a lover, while the second places the narrator on a beach while futilely attempting to grasp a handful of sand in his hand. The juxtaposed scenes contrast in a number of ways, as the poem moves from a calm, though solemn, farewell to a more passionate second half. Whereas the first stanza features a thoughtful agreement, the seashore scene contains expletives such as "O God!"

3. Personification is a description of something nonhuman that gives it humanlike qualities. “hope has flown away” in the first stanza and “pitiless wave” in the second stanza are two different examples of personification. In the first example, we have hope being described as flying away, as if hope had a choice and could leave. In the second example, waves are described as having no pity, as if they have feelings like a human and can care or not care how we feel. There is another example of personification in the first stanza of the poem. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shorePersonification is a description of something nonhuman that gives it humanlike qualities. For example, “hope has flown away” in the first stanza and “pitiless wave”

4. THEME : I think he is saying that the experience of dreams only exist within the moment, they are not everlasting, just like events, matter of things and even people in our lives. He is saying that dreams are just like life, they feel so incredibly real, yet when we wake up to the roar of life, or the dream of life we are in, we realize that it was all just a figment of imagination