Poe highlights the "golden" or wanted character of both the sand and love through the alliteration in "grains of the golden sand," yet he plainly indicates that neither is permanently achievable. "A Dream Within a Dream," like many of Poe's works, employs the sea as a background for a contemplation of death and decay. The image of the decaying body on the beach with its remaining gold found by the gull provides a metaphor for the fleeting nature of worldly wealth and love. The poem begins with a man looking at some golden grains of sand on a beach. He thinks about how valuable they are and wishes he could keep them for himself. Then he wakes up from his dream and realizes that what he had was not even real. He doesn't even remember owning the gold itself but only the idea of possessing it. This idea was so powerful that it made him feel happy even when he knew it couldn't be fulfilled. As soon as he wakes up, he also wakes up to the reality that material possessions cannot make him happy in the long run. Poe uses this dream sequence to show that we can never find true happiness except in God. We need to put our trust in Him instead of trying to obtain more and more material things that will eventually fade away.