XV La Belle Dame sans Mercy
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
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 cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a Lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean and sing
A fairy’s song.
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.
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 gazed and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes,
So kissed to sleep.
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.
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cried ‘La belle Dame sans mercy
Hath thee in thrall!’
I saw their starved lips in the gloom
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill-side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
J. Keats