La Belle Dame sans Merci
John Keats, 1820
Keats’s ballad of a knight found alone and palely loitering by a lake, who tells of the beautiful lady he met in the meadows.
I
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,Alone and palely loitering?The sedge has wither’d from the lake,And no birds sing.
II
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,So haggard and so woe-begone?The squirrel’s granary is full,And the harvest’s done.
III
I see a lily on thy browWith anguish moist and fever dew,And on thy cheeks a fading roseFast withereth too.
IV
I met a lady in the meads,Full beautiful—a faery’s child,Her hair was long, her foot was light,And her eyes were wild.
V
I made a garland for her head,And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;She look’d at me as she did love,And made sweet moan.
VI
I set her on my pacing steed,And nothing else saw all day long,For sidelong would she bend, and singA faery’s song.
VII
She found me roots of relish sweet,And honey wild, and manna dew,And sure in language strange she said—“I love thee true.”
VIII
She took me to her elfin grot,And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore,And there I shut her wild wild eyesWith kisses four.
IX
And there she lulled me asleep.And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betideThe latest dream I ever dream’dOn the cold hill’s side.
X
I saw pale kings and princes too,Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;They cried—“La Belle Dame sans MerciHath thee in thrall!”
XI
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,With horrid warning gaped wide,And I awoke and found me here,On the cold hill’s side.
XII
And this is why I sojourn here,Alone and palely loitering,Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,And no birds sing.