The last two lines in these two stanzas of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem are words that echo within me.

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?

One of the most recent experiences that has had a heavy impact on who I am as a person has been a trip to Israel. My eyes have been opened to things that I had previously been blind to. I am a new person, a changed person. A better person. Like a rude awakening to my old way of life I have been jolted out of bed by a loud sound, the sound of GOD? I am not sure, but the half dreams of before seem more dreamlike, and the dream-like state of my reality has shifted into something that is filled with much more clarity, a crystal clear sense of being alive, a wakeful life with more potential for purposefulness then ever before. I feel as though on my life path I am on a mission. I do not fully understand my mission, I do know that I have strayed more then once on my spiritual journey and it is at times a very hard journey. I am determined though, to follow the spiritual path that has been laid out for me. In fact, this path may need to be trail-blazed, it may be a road less taken sort of path, and there may indeed be miles to go before I sleep. 

Here are two beautiful poems by Robert Frost that I heard as a little girl, and have stayed in my mind all these years.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.