| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Music | | By George du Maurier (1834–1896) |
| | (After Sully Prudhomme)
KINDLY watcher by my bed, lift no voice in prayer, | |
| Waste not any words on me when the hour is nigh, | |
| Let a stream of melody but flow from some sweet player, | |
| And meekly will I lay my head and fold my hands to die. | |
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| Sick am I of idle words, past all reconciling, | 5 |
| Words that weary and perplex and pander and conceal, | |
| Wake the sounds that cannot lie, for all their sweet beguiling; | |
| The language one need fathom not, but only hear and feel. | |
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| Let them roll once more to me, and ripple in my hearing, | |
| Like waves upon a lonely beach where no craft anchoreth: | 10 |
| That I may steep my soul therein, and craving naught, nor fearing, | |
| Drift on through slumber to a dream, and through a dream to death. | | | | |
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