Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

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References to this poem

La Belle Dame sans Merci:
A Ballad

I

Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the Lake,
And no birds sing!

II

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.

III

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks 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 made a Garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked 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 full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

IX

And there she lullèd me asleep,
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;
They cried—‘La belle dame sans merci
Thee hath in thrall!’

XI

I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapèd 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 withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

× Cite this page:

MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “La Belle Dame sans Merci:
A Ballad.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, by G. Kim Blank. Edition 3.25 , University of Victoria, 29 May 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_la_belle_dame_sans_merci.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “La Belle Dame sans Merci:
A Ballad,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.25 , last modified 29th May 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_la_belle_dame_sans_merci.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “La Belle Dame sans Merci:
A Ballad.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.25 , last modified 29th May 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_la_belle_dame_sans_merci.html.