La Belle Dame sans Merci

By King Meera -
Literally, the title means the beautiful lady without thank you
Makes no sense, unless you take it as
a. The pretty lady without gratitude
b. The pretty lady without mercy

The poem is written in 12 parts: the first three parts, or stanzas, are in the voice of a random stranger who sees a knight-at-arms, desolate and pale, haggard and woe-begone, in cold sweats. He asks this knight-at-arms what ails him, then in parts (stanzas) 4 through 12, the knight-at-arms tells his tale.

The intent of this poem is to take the reader back in time to the medieval period of 8-12 C, (or usually in such poems, to the Hellenic era) that is the Dark Ages. Why? Because of freedom to express un-Christian, dark themes. Gothic elements - violence, terror, mystery, dark, subconsciousness, strange human relationships.

How Keats does it:
  • matter-of-fact to make you curious
  • brevity, economy of words
  • reality-fantasy
I.

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
  Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
  And no birds sing.

II.

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.

III.

I see a lily on thy brow
  With anguish moist and fever dew,
    
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
  Fast withereth too.

^ likeness of the fading spring

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 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.
       

VI.

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.

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 wept, and sigh’d fill sore,
       
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
  With kisses four.

IX.

And there she lulled me asleep,
  And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
       
  On the cold hill’s side.

X.

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!”
        

XI.

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.

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.


When you read about Keats you find that since his education was not at Eton or any of the fancy grammar schools, but at a countryside one, his poetry, for lack of "proper" meter, was also considered low-class.

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