Take this kiss upon the brow!
-- Speaker (Line 1)

Importance: These first lines of “A Dream Within a Dream” are important because they play the trick of loss on the us, the readers, that plagues Poe throughout the poem. The mention of the affectionate “kiss” leads us to falsely believe that we are entering into a poem focused on warm and cozy feelings from interpersonal companionship. But Poe quickly reveals this to be a short lasting and illusory comfort – the “kiss” is bestowed within the context of a “parting” to a “You … who [deems] / That my days have been a dream” from whose pleasantness Poe must inevitably awaken (2, 4-5). With these first lines, Poe fools us with and makes us personally feel the false comforts of a dream, which encourages us to empathize with his deep despair about his dreamlike existence throughout the rest of the poem.

Yet if hope has flown away / In...
-- Speaker (Lines 6-9)