Logos Virtual Library: Keats: La Belle Dame sans Merci

John Keats

John Keats (1795-1821)

La Belle Dame sans Merci

A Ballad

I
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,

Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither’d from the lake,

And no birds sing.

II
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,

So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,

And the harvest’s done.

III
I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose

Fast 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 set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing

A faery’s song.

VI
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.

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 gaz’d and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes—

So kiss’d to sleep.

IX
And there we slumber’d on the moss,

And there I dream’d, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dream’d

On the cold hill side.

X
I saw pale kings, and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry’d—“La belle Dame sans merci

Hath thee in thrall!”

XI
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 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.