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?






Refrain