La Belle Dame Sans Merci

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. 

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.

~ John Keats