“You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;”
Edgar Allan Poe book A Dream Within a Dream
"A Dream Within a Dream" (1849).
Context: 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.
“Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man.”
" Diddling: Considered As One Of The Exact Sciences http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.6/bookid.1390/"; first published as "Raising the Wind" in Saturday Courier (1843-10-14).
“Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.”
Edgar Allan Poe book The Philosophy of Composition
"The Philosophy of Composition" (published 1846).
“All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.”
Edgar Allan Poe book A Dream Within a Dream
"A Dream Within a Dream" (1849).
Context: 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.
“From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw —”
" Alone http://gothlupin.tripod.com/valone.html", l. 1-8 (written 1829, published 1875). <br class="br">Context: From childhood's hour I have not been<br>As others were — I have not seen<br>As others saw — I could not bring<br>My passions from a common spring —<br>From the same source I have not taken<br>My sorrow — I could not awaken<br>My heart to joy at the same tone —<br>And all I lov'd — I lov'd alone
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
Letter http://www.eapoe.org/works/letters/p4801040.htm to George W. Eveleth, Jan. 4, 1848.