Read the following poem by Edgar Allen Poe and answer the question that follows.
A Dream Within a Dream
Take this kiss upon the browl
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 fewl yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep,while I weepl
O Godl can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O Godl can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
What, if anything, does the sand in this poem symbolize? Defend your answer in at least three complete sentences.