A Dream Within a Dream

By Edgar Allan 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?

 

I picked this poem becasue the title reminds of Inception. This poem has some pretty striking imagery in the second stanza. I think Poe is talking about how time is precious but it slips past you like sand in your hand, and no matter how hard you try you cannot keep the things that matter to you. By saying that everything is a dream within a dream Poe means that things we take as important are actually meaningless and that our lives are also meaningless. Poe seems like kind of a downer. Even if our lives are meaningless or not real that does not mean a person could not enjoy their life.