Edgar Allen Poe lived from 1809 to 1849. He married his cousin when she was only 13, and her early death seems to have contributed to his rather morbid outlook in his poetry and stories.
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?
The two parts of this poem might seem separate from each other, but both of them relate to how fleeting life is. Love is powerful, and yet our time on this planet Earth goes by in the blink of an eye. Grains of sand escape through our fingers. The sea comes and goes, pounding rock into tiny grains.
The Matrix played on this idea - how real is our life? Is this all but a dream?
July - A Poem A Day
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