Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By A Palace of Dreams, and Other Verse (1901). I. Sonnets I, XXI, XL, XLIII

Ada Bartrick Baker (1854– )

SINCE to my dreams you once unbidden came,

I know not why, nor may I dare to tell

How, though my heart remembers but too well

The thought of you has set my soul aflame

And I, when others chance to speak your name,

Feel that it holds for me a secret spell

To make my pulses thrill, my bosom swell

And flutter, all aglow with joy and shame.

Yet what should shame me? For although I meet

Your eyes, no knowledge in them dwells of this

My fancy stolen-shadow of a bliss

You gave me; and because it was so sweet,

And being but a dream can bring no pain,

I’ll dream it, waking, o’er and o’er again.

More rich am I than richest misers are

For I have you, more worth than glitt’ring hoard

Of heap’d-up gold, within my bosom stored

Where sweet remembrance needs no bolt nor bar.

And I do count myself the happier far

That you, my joy, to others joy afford:

Base treasures basely own but one poor lord,

Who is’t dare claim the shining of a star?

Things chiefest prized,—the sun that glows above,

The flowery fields, the woods, the wand’ring air,

These sweet delights we must with others share,

And so am I content to share your love.

That you love others shall not make my grief;

That you love me makes you from those no thief.

Not to be near you! But to know my days

Apart from yours must waste away, and lose

The golden time which should be love’s to use,

Like some bright spirit hovering round your ways:

To lift my eyes, and yet not meet your gaze

That falls upon my soul like thrilling dews:

To think of you—and weep! Yet, weeping, choose

Through all my tears love’s bitter-sweet to praise.

To dream of you, when dawning slowly brings

Remembrance of my pain, that stirs and wakes

Against my bosom all the night, and makes

The lonely dark a voice of mournful things.

O this it is love’s thorny crown to wear,

And find how sharp the pricks that wound me there!

It is like heaven to dream! Soft flows the river

Of shadowy sleep under a charmèd sky,

Lull’d by the trembling airs that wander by,

Where moonlight and pale starlight fall and shiver.

And one low song—’tis love’s—pours forth a quiver

Of unseen joy. Ah! must we wake to sigh

That love is a regret? Do you, as I,

Hold back the gift, so fain to be the giver?

Do you, as I? The cry rings all in vain:

Your voice must never answer. For apart,

I whisper wild enchantments to my heart,

And bid it sleep and dream of heaven again.

O! on some bright, some far, ethereal shore,

To wake and know you mine, a dream no more!