LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI — 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 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 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 dream’d

On the cold hill’s 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 gapèd 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 has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

JOHN KEATS (1795 – 1821), son of a stable keeper in London, learn Latin, history, and some French. He was apprenticed to become a doctor but ultimately qualified as a surgeon. But he abandoned surgery owing to his passion for poetry. He wrote for a short period from 1816 to 1820 when he became seriously ill with tuberculosis. He died in Rome. He desired that on his tomb should be written: ‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water’. His poetry, however, has etched his name in bold letters which will survive long. Keats is a worshipper of beauty and his verse is passionate and moving.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI is a ballad (a popular story narrated in short stanzas). It narrates the story of a knight who is enticed by a beautiful elf. This elf is the beautiful but merciless woman of the poem. She offers him many pleasures but when he wakes in the morning he finds no beloved and is left alone on the cold hillside where ‘no birds sing’. The story treats beauty, women, and love cynically.

loitering:          to stand or stroll in public place, usu. with no particular/obvious purpose

sedge:              a plant like glass that grows in wet lands near water.

haggard:          looking very tired and unhappy

woebegone:     looking very unhappy and worried

steed:               horse / stallion

faery:               fairy / elf

grot:                 (grotto) a cave, esp. one made artificially in the garden

sore:                painfully

woe-betide:      (idm.) woe-betide sb. There will be trouble for sb.

gloam:                         (gloom) the faint light after the sun set or before its rise.

horrid:                         very bad and unpleasant / horrible

sojourn:           to stay in a place away from one’s home for a time

Summary:

‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is one of the short but very popular poems of John Keats. In its brief space of forty eighty lines Keats has achieved the highest perfection of the ‘ballad’ form. This is the only one of its kind by him. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ can hardly be said to tell a story. It sets before us the wasting of Power and Time just for the sake of Love, when either the hostility of fate or a mistaken choice makes of love not a blessing but a disaster. The wretchedness of love which the poet describes in the poem is partly that of his soul in relation to Fanny Brawne.  The imagery of the poem is drawn from the medieval world of enchantment and knighthood.

The poem abounds in vivid pictures such as of the pale young knight whose forehead is moist with sweat, the beautiful lady with long hair and wild eyes, and the pale kings and princes dressed as warriors. The theme of the poem is unrequited love: The language used to narrate the story is simple, but sprinkled with archaic terms and expressions, that give a romantic glamour to the poem. ‘Palely loitering’, ‘woe-begone’, ‘fragrant zone’, ‘relish sweet’, ‘manna-dew’, and ‘woe betide’, are some such expressions. On the whole the poem helps to recall the medieval days and chivalry with its tales of knights and fair ladies. 

The poet in the course of his wanderings happened to meet a young knight in a strange place. The poet asked the knight why he looked so frightened and miserable. The knight replied that some time ago, in a far off meadow, he met a beautiful lady with long hair and wild eyes. He fell in love with her and adorned her with a wreath, bracelets and a belt, all made of fragrant flowers. She looked at him and by making sweet moans signaled that she loved him. He placed her on his horse and walked by her side. He was led to a small cave where she fed him with some delicious food and afterwards lulled him to sleep. During his sleep he dreamt of kings and princes who had been previously enchanted by the same lady. They told him that he too had been enslaved by the beautiful lady without pity. That was why he was found loitering in the strange place.