La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats | Poetry Foundation 19/10/18 14(50

La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

BY JO H N K E ATS

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

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.

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 set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

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La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats | Poetry Foundation 19/10/18 14(50

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 lullèd me asleep,

And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Notes:
POL participants and judges: in this poem's third-to-last stanza, recitations that include “Hath thee in thrall!”
or “Thee hath in thrall!” are both acceptable.

Source: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics, 1988)

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La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats | Poetry Foundation 19/10/18 14(50

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