A dream within a dream

After struggling to understand most of the poems we have read together as a class, I thought I would go and find a famous poem off of the internet. My plan was to read a very popular poem off the internet and see if I could understand the meaning the author was trying to get across. Just like we are taught in class, I will read and reread many times to try and get different ideas every time I go back to read. The famous poem that I chose was:

"A Dream Within A Dream" by Edgar Allan Po


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 found this poem to be difficult to understand just like the ones that we have read together in class. But I didnt give up and I kept rereading till I came up with what I thought the poet was trying to say through this poem. After like the third time reading this poem, I came up with what I think the poem is about. I started to think this is about a man that loses the one that he loves to death and becomes very sad. The way he says”kiss upon the brow”, makes me think that he is giving her a kiss goodbye. The other thing is the way he talks about how the sand running through his fingers and there’s nothing he can do to slow it down or stop it. I find this to be the poet trying to explain how time keeps passing by and there’s nothing anyone can do to slow it down or to stop time. This is why I believe the poem is about how a man loses the woman that he loves after she dies and how he wishes the time they spent together would have slowed down.

Questions:
1. What is your understanding of this Edgar Allan Poe poem?
2. How many times did you have to read this poem till you came up with this interpretation?
3. Did you like this poem?