Take this kiss upon the brow And in parting from you now Thus much let me avow You're 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 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 While I weep, while I weep Oh God, can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp? Oh God, can I not save one from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem but a dream within 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