Can I Not Save One from the Pitiless Wave?

He appeals to God, and asks if he can't hold on to them (the grains of sand) with a "tighter clasp" and if he can't save one from the "pitiless wave." The negative questions here imply negative answers. The answers to the speaker's "can I not" are clearly meant to be "no, you can't."

What is the meaning of Edgar Allan Poe's dream within a dream?

The poem expresses doubt and uncertainty about the nature of reality, questioning whether life itself is just an illusion—"a dream within a dream." It begins with a speaker parting from a lover (or at least, from someone with whom the speaker was very close), and ends with the speaker on a beach, attempting to grasp ...

Is therefore the less gone?

Is it therefore the less gone? Is but a dream within a dream. Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep!