La
Belle Dame Sans Merci
by John Keats
|
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 lilly on the thy brow, |
With anguish moist and
fever dew, |
And on thy cheek 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 look’d 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
sigh’d full sore, |
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
|
With kisses four.
|
And there she lulled me asleep, |
And there I dream’d, 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 starv’d lips in the
gloam |
With horrid warning
gaped 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 |
Classic Poems |
|
[ La Belle Dame Sans Merci ] [ Ode to a Nightingale ] [ Ode on a Grecian Urn ] [ Ode on Indolence ] [ Ode to Psyche ] [ Ode on Melancholy ] [ Ode to autumn ] |