La Belle Dam Sans Merci

("The Beautiful Lady without Pity")


O what can ail thee knight at arms
alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has witherd from the lake
and no birds sing

O what can ail thee knight at arms
so haggard and woebegone?
The squirrel's granary is full
and the harvests done

I see a lily on thy brow
with anguish moist and fever dew
and on thy cheeks a fading rose
fast withereth too

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

I made a garland for her head
and bracelets too and fragrant zone
she looked at me as she did love
and made sweet moan

I sat her on my pacing steed
and nothing else saw all day long
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A faery's song

She found me roots of relish sweet
And honey wild, and manna dew
And sure in language strange she said
'I love thee true'

She took me to her elfin grot
and there she wept and sighed full sore
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
with kisses four

And there she lulled me asleep
and there I dreamed Ah woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
on the cold hillside

I saw pale kings and princes too
Pale warriors, death pale were they all
They cried 'La Belle Dam Sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
with horrid warning gaped wide
And I awoke and found me here
on the cold hillside

And this is why I soujourn here
alone and palely loitering
Though the sedge has withered from the lake
and no birds sing.

----- John Keats