La Belle Dame Sans Merci

by John Keats

　　Alone and palely loitering?

　　The sedge has withered from the lake,

　　And no birds sing.

　　Oh 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 lulled 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

　　Hath thee in thrall!'

　　I saw their starved 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.