By John Keats (1819)
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
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…
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said —
I love thee true…
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’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!”
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Analysis
Keats revives the medieval ballad as a modern caution. The knight’s tale is all appetite and enthrallment until a dream exposes a pattern — victims in a procession of pale. The refrain of withered sedge and silence turns landscape into diagnosis: desire has drained the world of season and sound.
Ambiguity is the poem’s power. Is the lady a fatal enchantress, or is the knight captive to his projection of perfect love? Keats refuses to settle the blame, letting the lyric’s eerie economy — short lines, insistent rhymes — hold the ache. What remains is warning without moralism, a story that explains nothing and therefore lingers.