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
Refrain
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?