Day 13 - A Dream Within a Dream - by Edgar Allen Poe

I am so tired today.  I'm not sure what's up, maybe the heat - it's making me apathetic.  I haven't done anything all day but get the mail and weed a bit.  After that I needed a nap.  I'm not sure what my dream was, but I slept for an hour.  I still feel groggy, like I'm still asleep, like the air is too thick for me to fully awaken.  You know the moment when you just wake up, and you are in between the dream-state and waking-state?  This tiny moment when both worlds occur simultaneously is strange, like in that instant all possibilities exist.  Dreams within a dream-state.

Edgar Allen Poe (1809 - 1949) only lived for 40 years but produced some incredible poetry.  Many of his poems feel like a dream-state. He was orphaned at the age of 2, first his father abandoned him, and then his mother died.  He was taken in by the Allen family.  At 27, he married his cousin who was 13. They were only married for 11 years when she died. Poe died a short 2 years later. Maybe his heart was broken.

I think I will lay down and have another dream within a dream, and in the meantime I offer you my reading of this:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/a-dream-within-a-dream

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A Dream Within a Dream - by Edgar Allen Poe

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?

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I think my absolute favourite Poe Poem is The Raven, but I don't think I can do it justice.  The best reading of all is by Vincent Price.  Maybe one day I will attempt it.  In the meantime, I offer Vincent's reading on this one for you for your enjoyment.  If that one doesn't get you, here is Christopher Lee's version.  And if neither one of those work, here is Alan Parson's version (which I love) of both A Dream Within a Dream and The Raven.