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?

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

In a vision, or in no

Is it therefore the 1

All that we see or

Is but a dream wi

I stand amid the

Of a surf-tormer

And I hold wit

Grains of the

How few! ye

Through my

While I wee

O God! ca

Them with

O God!

One from

Is all th

But a d

Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;

But light from out the lurid sea

Streams up the turrets silently

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes-up spires-up kingly halls—
Up fanes-up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine

Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there

That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town

Death looks gigantically down.

!