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 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 lullèd 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 

       Thee hath 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 is withered from the lake, 

       And no birds sing.

 

 Summary of the poems

The poem starts with unnamed speaker who asks a wounded knight what ails him. The knight is in a pathetic physical and emotional state, deeply troubled, alone, pale and wandering about aimlessly in a barren landscape. In first twelve lines the speaker seems to be deeply concerned for the knight. He pointedly and persistently questions the knight about the cause of his trouble.

In stanza four the knight begins to answer the questions of the speaker and tells him his strange story. He tells that he met a beautiful, fairylike lady in the woods. The knight fell in love with her and came immediately under her spell. He was hypnotized by her powerful eyes, beautiful figure, long hair and her lively appearance, losing awareness of all but her. In stanza five the knight says that although he could not understand her language still they communicated. He made her a garland of flowers, a bracelet, and a belt and took her for a ride on his horse. The fairy offered him food and cast a spell upon him which he mistook as her love. She lulled him to sleep. Once asleep, the knight saw all the kings, princes and warriors the fairy seduced and they were all dead. They were warning him that he was enslaved by the beautiful lady without pity. The knight then woke up and found himself alone on the hillside, the beautiful lady had disappeared. The knight is totally devastated and heartbroken. The poems ends with the knight feeling emotionally depleted , loitering alone, mourning the loss of the mysterious lady.

 

Critical analysis

Keats has taken the title from a poem by the medieval poet, Alain Cartier, though the plots of the two poems are different. It means the beautiful woman without mercy. The poem was written in 1819. It exists in two versions with minor differences. The first version is from the original manuscript found in a letter to Keats’ brother  and the second version is its first published form. According to Robert Graves, the source of the poem is the folk ballad of Thomas the Rhymer. The poem may also have been inspired by a painting called ‘The Mermaid’ by William Hilton based on Cunningham’s poem, which Keats saw at Sir John Leicester’s gallery, a few days before 15^th April 1819. Bate believes the central influence to be Edmund Spenser’s Duessa, who in The Faerie Queene(1590-96) seduces the Red Cross Knight.

The most interesting of the fatal figures in Keats is the lady we encounter in La Belle Dame Sans Merci. The poem has been the subject of considerable critical attention. There are many interpretations to the poem. Some say that it is an allegory with deep hidden meanings.

It is written in stanza of three iambic tetrameter lines,  the fourth diametric line which makes the stanza seems a self-contained unit. The poem has slow movement and pleasing to the ear. It has stylistic characteristics of the ballad such as simple language, repetition and absence of details also deals with the supernatural elements. The beautiful lady without pity, is a femme fatale, a cicle like figure who attracts lovers only destroy them by her  supernatural powers.