"A Dream Within a Dream" by Poe (My Musical Setting)

Here is a rough draft of a musical setting I'm working on for Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "A Dream Within a Dream". I've always loved this poem and believe that there is so much truth in it.

The oboe plays the vocal line on this midi file and a harp plays the keyboard line...

"A Dream Within a Dream"

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?

Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1849)

*This poem was re-written many times throughout Poe's life. This version- the final version- was published the year of mysterious death.