Beginning of Essay
If ever a poet's life influenced his writing ,Edgar Allan Poe did. Poe's personal emotions were evident in all of his writings but no more so than in the poem, "A Dream Within a Dream." In this poem Poe's feelings of loss and hopelessness are clearly reflected, " ....

Middle of Essay
.... . O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? In the first stanza of his poem, Poe is speaking to a person who has seen him through some rough times. He is trying to convince her as well as himself that his life has not changed through the years. He questions the realness and significance of the everyday events of life and finally concludes that they are unimportant and superficial. "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." The second stanza takes on a more despairing tone. His air of carelessness begins to vanish. He realizes that everything he holds of value is quickly slipping away from him as, "Grains of golden sand ....