Poem Analysis

 A Dream Within a Dream

             By Edgar Allen Poe 

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?

           Edgar Allen Poe, the poet that has written “The Bells”, also wrote the poem, “A Dream Within a Dream”. This poem is written as an extended metaphor as it compares life to a dream until the very end. It is written in two stanzas. The first stanza expresses the sadness of the speaker as they part ways with a potential lover. The second stanza continues to express the speakers sadness while using a metaphor that compares sand slipping through ones fingers to the fact that there can not be a tight grip on reality and time. Time passes no matter what, even if a person chooses not to accept that reality. Through the poem, Poe utilizes end rhymes to make the poem melodious. For instance, in the first three lines of the first stanza, he rhymes the words “brow”, “now” and “avow.” Poe also inserts repetition into his poem as another way to make it sound melodious to a reader. He repeats the same “d” constant sounds in line 5, “That my days have been a dream” and in line 15, “Grains of the golden sand ”. The line “But a dream within a dream” is also repeated by the speaker at the end of each stanza. All of these repetitions were inserted to make the poem flow as if it were a song. The punctuation in the poem includes multiple exclamation points and question marks. The exclamation points are used during the lines where the speaker is expressing great emotion, such as love or despair. The question marks are used to question the the reality of life, which to the speaker, is nothing but a dream within a dream.