“La Belle Dame sans Merci”
by John Keats
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d 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 fill 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 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 wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
An Analysis of “La Belle Dame sans Merci”
The poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci” was written in 1819 by John Keats. Keats borrowed the title of this poem from a medieval poem and is translated to “The Beautiful Lady without Mercy.” In the forty-eight lines of poetry, Keats uses the rhyme scheme of ABCB for each four lined stanza.
The first twelve lines of the poem introduce a man by a lake and a knight-at-arms. One could think that the man by the lake asks the knight why it is that he looks so worn down and sickly. The man asks the knight why he is alone and “palely loitering” by the lake where no birds sing, giving the idea that the birds have migrated away for the season, and also states that the harvest is done and the plants around the lake have started to wither, thus implying it being around late autumn or early winter. The remaining thirty-six lines are given from the knight, as he tells the man his story.
The knight begins his story with “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,” obviously he speaks of a woman who was more faery-like than human with long beautiful hair, a certain lightness on foot, and wild eyes (L 13-16). In medieval times and throughout most of literatures history, the image of a faery or elf was of someone like the woman described in the poem; a beautiful being with long hair, they were light on their feet in a way so that you could not hear them walking, and their eyes were always wild, like an animals from the woods. “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,” states that the speaker made this beautiful woman garlands for her hair, bracelets, and a belt all made of flowers, then he placed her on his horse as a chivalrous knight would so that she would not have to walk. He states that the woman gives him a loving look and sings a song, “a faery’s song.” (L 17-24).
In lines twenty-five through thirty-six the knight states to the reader that this woman is slowly seducing him into a sense of security and love, giving him gifts that show her closeness with nature like “roots of relish” and “wild honey,” while also telling him that her love for him is true, but in a language he himself does not understand and therefore might not and does not hold the same meaning. The woman then takes him to her “elfin grot” or grotto, which is like a small cave or cavern, where she lulls him to sleep. The knight then states that he has the last dream of his life.
The last three stanzas give the scene of the knight’s dream as he sees it. One could assume that the pale kings and princes he sees in his dream were the previous men that this mysterious, faery-like woman had seduced before, and they all yell out to him “la belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall,” essentially telling the knight that the beautiful woman without mercy has him enslaved. The knight heads their warnings and awakes on the cold hill’s side where he fell asleep, he then tells the man that this was why he was by the lake alone and “palely loitering.”
A theme that dominated this particular poem was one of love and betrayal. The knight was lured in by this woman through love and seduction, but betrayed into almost death. The dream he had of the old kings, princes, and warriors showed them as pale men, but the pale you would see on a deceased person. One could also argue that a good theme for this poem would be one of an obsession with beauty, and how if the most beautiful woman or man is placed in front of you, most people would follow him or her to their death. Many become enchanted by beauty that they lose sight of their own minds and fall into the grips of betrayal and deceit. Through out literature and myth there have been countless stories of mortals/humans who fall in love with gods, faeries, mythical being, and all but a very few end very disastrously for the mortal kind. Also in faery, elfin, and pixie myth many stories are told of humans becoming completely captivated by the creatures that when their relationships end with them, however long or short they might have been, the human always suffered immense emotional consequences.
