Take this kiss upon the brow 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?
Rhyme Scheme First Stanza: AAABBCCDDBB Second Stanza: EEFFGGGHHIIBB The Poem consists of rhyming couplets Rhyming Couplets: A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry
Poetic Techniques Tone: The tone set for this poem is very sombre. The author uses repetition of the words “ O God” to shift this across. These words typically make us feel sad as someone has stooped so low to call upon a higher power to assist them. Repetition: “O God” and rhyme (see rhyme scheme on previous slide) Rhyme: Rhyming Couplets and Scheme Ballad: This poem is a ballad as it’s a poem consisting of Stanzas. Similes and Metaphors: Overall the poem is discussing a mans perspective on his memories, the similes come out when he talks about his memories being so few and small like grains of sand: “”””Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand- How few! yet how they creep” Hyperbole: “O God” “O God”- the over exaggeration of the situation. However, this does inform us that the man described in the poem clearly will do anything to reacquire the past memories in which he once had.
Poetic Techniques Another metaphor enters the equation when the man describes his dreams as the sand being washed away by the incoming shore. “O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave?” Assonance: “While I weep, While I weep” – inferring that the man is desperate to recover ‘what was’. “All that I see, or seem”. Imagery: The author has successfully implied imagery through his metaphors, similes and tone. In this instance the imagery reflected comes across as upsetting and demeaning.
Summary of Poem From the poem we learn that it is the author who questions the reality of what he seeing. He questions the reality of what seems to be, when the surf crashes along the shore, the grains of sand slip through his fingers, (implementation of the metaphor; the sand becoming a form of anthropomorphic dream and the waves being the force that eradicated these memories which was Edgar’s wife Virginia Clemm). Furthermore the wave draws away ‘what was’ and what could’ve been’ this the reason for the sadness of the poem. As the author cannot reacquire what he lost and what he may have had- His wife and the possibility of having a family.