A Dream Within A Dream
Edgar Allan Poe

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;5
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 seem10
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-15
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? 20
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
Which BEST describes the use and effect of rhetoric in the second stanza?

A) Expletives and rhetorical questions reinforce a tone of anguish and despair.
B) Expletives and rhetorical questions reinforce a tone of relief, but also uncertainty.
C) Repetition and parallelism create a contrast to the destructive nature of the speaker.
D) Repetition and parallelism suggest similarities that emphasize the strength of the speaker.