America: A Dream Within A Dream?

 

On the occasion of the 212th birthday of one of
America's best known and loved poets and writers,
I have to ask myself, has the greatest nation on the
face of the earth merely been 'a dream within a dream?'
Did Edgar Poe somehow communicate this through
one of my favorite of his poems?   

Edgar Allan Poe

January 19, 1809-October 7, 1849

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!

Oh 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?

"A Dream Within A Dream"

(1849)

Edgar Allan Poe

Traces
(1969)
The Classics IV