Note from Joe: I’ll never forget the moment when I first realized why Poe makes the subtle change from tetrameter to trimeter halfway through this poem. It was for me a sort of poetic enlightenment. If you don’t see it, then read the poem again. Smart cookie, that guy!
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?