A new Travelodge hotel opened in Horsham in January 2011. (This poem, a finalist in its launch-day competition, now hangs on the wall in Reception.)
Welcome, traveller in time and space!
Come rest awhile from life’s relentless pace
In Horsham, ancient Sussex marketplace.
First eat, then yield to sleep’s tranquil embrace.
The poet, Shelley, close by here was born
In 1792, one August morn.
Unconventional, his years by passions torn;
Not in his life, but later, came his dawn.
But you, who in these hotel walls abide,
Will meet his “sweet child, Sleep, the filmy-eyed”
As time holds still, let quiet repose provide
A life-renewing, thorough-cleansing tide.
And as you drift, let cares evaporate away,
Transformed by slumber’s nightly theatre play
Which wafts you softly to another day.
Then, traveller, arise and go your way!
(The quotation is from Shelley’s “To Night”)