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Sussex Poets. 267 |
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Within the hour of thy reign
All was warm and bright again!
If wandering love forgot her vow,
Who led her back as soon as thou ?
But if, indeed, thou canst assume
Terror's image, terror's gloom—
E'en then, when rous'd by anger's will,
Enchantress, I would woo thee still!
What are thine airy woes or strife
To the realities of life ?
The fickle sons of guile forsaking
The wanderer when his heart is breaking—
The eye of love, when chill'd by pride,
Turning its azure glance aside—
The pomp, the pride, the seeming free,
Pleasure—all false, all vanity!
'Mid things that so delusive shine,
Where, Spirit, can be joys like thine ?
And who that ever felt thy kiss
Would grudge the penalty of bliss ?
I know not if it be my fate
To meet thy terror, or thy hate—
As yet thou hast but been to me
A refuge from reality!—
And surely they who sorrow share,
Can well surmount thine airy care—
For tho' slumber yield no more
Her balmy visions, as before,
Her pictur'd ills are far less deep
Than daylight's woes. O maid of sleep!
I love thee now! Thou art to me
The spirit of tranquillity!
Mr. C. S. Busby was the son of the talented architect of that name who designed Brunswick Square, Brunswick Terrace, and other of the best parts, architecturally, of Brighton. The son was brought up to the law and left Brighton to follow that profession—successfully, we are glad to say—in another part of England. If still alive, and if they meet his view, he will doubtless smile as he reads the above verses and thinks that he, too—if Blackstone and Chitty had not come between him and the Muses—might have been a Poet!
William Henry Fleet was the eldest son of the then proprietor of the same Brighton journal in which the compositions of Mr. Busby appeared, but in the columns of which his name appears only once attached to his productions. His poems were thrown undistinguished into the |
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