La Belle Dame sans Merci

Poet (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 fairy'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.

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 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
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 is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing

Stanza 1
The poem begins with the poet’s question to the knight, “O what can ail thee“. The phrase reflects that the
knight is in ail or trouble and distress. The poet asks him why he is sad and wandering alone near the lake where
no green grass is left and no bird is singing.
The season described in the poem is that of winter. In literature, winter symbolizes solitude, sorrow, and grief.
This also refers to the fact that the knight-at-arms is grieved.

Stanza 2
In the second stanza, the poet repeats the same question. He asks the knight-at-arms why he is tired and
miserable in appearance. In this stanza, he refers to the winter season by telling that the squirrel is done with
collecting its grains and even the harvest is also done. These two symbols also refer to a time of loneliness,
coldness, and grief.

Stanza 3
The poet tells the knight-at-arms that there is a lily on his brow i.e. his face is without colour and is pale like a
lily. There are sweat and pain in his forehead that depicts that the knight-at-arms is sick.
In the final line, the poet says that the colour of the knight-at-arms face is fading quickly like that of a withered
rose. Till here the poet is talking and raising questions to the knight-at-arms.
In the following stanza, the knight-at-arms tells his story and the reason behind his such condition.

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Stanza 4
Now after listening to the questions raised by the poet, the knight-at-arms answers that he met a beautiful lady
in the meadows. She had long hair, white feet and passionate eyes. She seemed to be a fairy’s child.

Stanza 5
After meeting that lady, the knight-at-arms falls in love with her. As a token of love, he gifts her a garland
(made up of intertwined flowers) for her head, bracelets and fragrant zone i.e. a belt made up of flowers for her
waist.
The lady also responds to his love by looking at him with affection and making sweet moans. Probably they do
lovemaking and also had sex. In this perspective, the fragrant zone may refer to her female parts which the poet
loved and kissed.

Stanza 6
Afterward, he takes her along with him on his horse (pacing steed) and the whole day they spend time with each
other. The lady also sings songs for the knight-at-arms that seem to him as the fairy songs i.e. very melodious.

Stanza 7
The lady than gifts him tasty and sweet food to eat including tasty roots, honey of wild bees and sweet gum of
mana ash. Though he couldn’t understand her language, it seems to him that she said: “I love you truly” in her
own language.

Stanza 8
The lady then takes him to her “Elfin grot” which means small and fairy cave. There she weeps loudly but the
knight-at-arms do not reveal the reason for it. Perhaps it refers to the way of expressing her love.
The knight-at-arms then kisses her “wild eyes” and shuts them so that she may sleep with him. Here again, her
eyes are depicted as wild.

Stanza 9
The lady lulls or in simple words sends him to sleep. The knight-at-arms in the dream sees one of the most
terrifying dreams on the hillside. Ah! woe betide! is an exclamation that expresses knight-at-arms’ grief and
fear.

Stanza 10
The knight-at-arms see kings, princes, warriors who have turned pale and have a dead-like appearance. All of
them warn the knight-at-arms that “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” i.e. beware of that lady because she is without
mercy. She is the same lady who has led them the dread fate.

Stanza 11
Seeing their starved (and grieved) lips which were altogether warning him, the knight-at-arms he wakes up at
once and finds him alone on the cold hill’s side.

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Stanza 12
In the final stanza, the knight-at-arms says that this is the reason why he is wandering all alone along the lake
where there is no grass and at a time when there is no bird to sing, in a miserable condition, pale face.

Key Thoughts
The poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci, in my views, conveys the message that love, like a flower, is short-loved.
The joy is quite short and suffering is forever. It also reflects how beauty can deceive a person and make him
fail or suffer

Critical Appreciation
The title of the poem, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is in French and it means the beautiful lady without
mercy. This is the only ballad written by Keats. Though short (48 lines) it is recognized as one of the finest
romantic and narrative poems. Each stanza has a rhyme scheme a,b,c,b. The sad and pensive atmosphere is
suggested by the short lines, the last line being still shorter.
The theme of the poem is unrequited love- the pain and suffering of one who loves but is not loved in
return. It tells us about the love of a human being for a fairy. For this ballad Keats has drawn his inspiration from
old legends and literature. Keats’ own experience of unfulfilled love may have given him the idea to express his
feelings of frustration in this moving ballad. The haunting atmosphere of the medieval world has been created by
the poet. There is the elfin grot, soul stirring music, magic spell, and hideous nightmares.
The poet/speaker in the course of his wanderings happen to meet a young knight in astrange place. He
asked him why he looked (the knight) so frightened and miserable. The knight replied that sometime ago he had
met a beautiful lady withand wild eyes in a far off meadow. He fell in love with her and with fragrant flowers
made her a wreath, bracelets and a belt. She signalled that she loved him so he placed her on his horse, and led
her to a small cave (This is what Lakshmi Akka says, but the poem says ‘she took me [the knight] to her elfin
grot’). There she served him delicious food and then lulled him to sleep. In his dream he dreamt of Kings, Princes,
and warriors. They warned him that the lady was cruel, and that he had been enslaved by her. The knight tells
the poet/speaker that that was the reason he was loitering all alone in the intense cold weather, looking pale.
There is a touch of mystery about this poem, Partly this mystery is the result of the supernatural elements.
Partly, it flows from the personality of the lady. Who is she? Is she human, or is she one of the nature? Why does
she attract people, and leave them so miserable? All these questions will remain unanswered forever.
The romantic quality of the poem is further enhanced by its atmosphere of medieval ages. This incident
happens to a knight. The knight goes about on a pacing steed. There is a mention of pale knights, princes, kings,
and warriors. These touches build up the medieval atmosphere.
Suggestiveness is the main beauty of the poem. The poet does not state or elaborate anything, he only
hints. The strange lady, for example, is described merely with the help of brief but striking images. The
atmosphere of supernaturalism and medievalism is also created using these suggestions. The poem also presents
the romantic idea of love. It is presented as an all consuming passion. It haunts the night and also brings him to
ruin.

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 The poem is highly successful, as it appeals to our sense of wonder. Keats has used metaphors as a literary
device, but other than this, the ballad has no other adornment. The metaphor of the lily and of the ‘fading rose’
suggest the depletion of physical strength with the red color of the face turning pale.

La Belle Dame sans Merci: summary

‘La Belle Dame sans Merci.’ ‘The woman is beautiful, but merciless.’ Keats’s title, which he got from a
15th-century courtly love poem by Alain Chartier (La Belle Dame sans Mercy), provides a clue to the poem’s
plot: in summary,the poem begins with the speaker asking a knight what’s wrong – this knight-at-arms is on his
own, looking pale as he loiters on a hillside.

This knight-at-arms has a lily-white forehead (i.e. he’s pale), and a rose-coloured cheek. But symbolically, this
rose is withering: love has gone rotten.

It’s at this point that the voice in the poem shifts from this first speaker – the one questioning the knight about
what’s up with him – to the knight-at-arms himself. The knight then tells us his story: he met a beautiful lady in
the meadows, who the knight believes was the child of a faery – there was something fey or supernatural and
otherworldly about this woman. She had wild eyes, which imply an unpredictability in her nature.

The knight tells his interlocutor how he was inspired to shower this ‘faery’s child’ with gifts: a garland or wreath
for her head, bracelets for her wrists, and a sweet-smelling girdle for her waist. The woman looks as though she
loves these gifts, and moans sweetly. The knight puts the lady up on his horse and rides all day without taking his
eyes off her – not a pursuit we’d recommend when riding a horse. As the lady delicately rides his horse side-
saddle, as befits a lady, she sings a ‘faery’s song’.

As if to complement the three gifts (garland, bracelets, ‘zone’ or girdle) the knight gave her, the belle dame sans
merci gives the knight three sweet gifts: sweet relish, wild honey, and manna-dew (implying something almost
divine: ‘manna’ was the foodstuff that fell from heaven in the Old Testament). In a strange language, the lady
tells the knight she loves him. She takes him to her Elfin grotto, where she proceeds to weep and sigh; the knight
silences her with four kisses.

The lady, in turn, silences the knight by lulling him to sleep – presumably with another ‘faery’s song’ – and the
knight dreams of men, pale kings and princes, crying that ‘La belle dame sans merci’ has him enthralled or
enslaved.

In the evening twilight, the knight sees the starved lips of these men – men who have presumably also been
enthralled or bewitched by such a belle dame sans merci – as they try to warn him, and then the knight awakens
and finds himself alone on the hillside where the poem’s original speaker encountered him. And that’s how he
ended up here, alone and palely loitering.

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