La Belle Dame Sans Merci

                                             La Belle Dame Sans Merci
La Belle Dame sans Merci  is a French word actually means “ The Beautiful Lady without Pity”. It is actually a ballad written by English poet John Keats. The original was written by Keats in 1819, although the title is that of a fifteenth century poem by Alain Chartier.

The poem describes the encounter between an unnamed knight and a mysterious woman who is said to be "a fairy's child". It opens with a description of the knight in a barren landscape, "haggard" and "woe-be gone". He tells the reader how he met a beautiful lady whose "eyes were wild"; he set her on his horse and she took him to her "elfin grot", where she "wept, and sigh' d full sore". Falling asleep, the knight had a vision of "pale kings and princes", who cried, "La Belle Dame sans Merci hath thee in thrall!" He awoke to find himself on the same "cold hill's side" after which he continues to wait and "palely loitering".

Only twelve stanzas of four lines each, with an ABCD rhyme scheme, it is full of enigmas. I think it’ s been extracted by our State government in India and placed it as a first lesson as poetry when I am first year of Intermediate. As usually that age is full of confusion between boys and girls. Luckily, a new lecturer had appointed for English to our class. He is well educated and taught the first lesson and told many things about boys and girls and their development in both financial and education manner. The lesson “ The Beautiful Lady Without Pity” had engraved in our hearts about the love and care of a girl to a knight without pity. There in my mind a poet had just born and willing to write many ballads and stanzas of poems even and yet had been trying to write some at least in disguise from the ladies and girls who had no pity.

 

La Belle Dam Sans Merci

O what can ail thee knight at arms
alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has witherd from the lake
and no birds sing

O what can ail thee knight at arms
so haggard and woebegone?
The squirrel's granary is full
and the harvests 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 sat 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 lulled me asleep
and there I dreamed Ah woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
on the cold hillside

I saw pale kings and princes too
Pale warriors, death pale were they all
They cried 'La Belle Dam Sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
with horrid warning gaped wide
And I awoke and found me here
on the cold hillside

And this is why I soujourn here
alone and palely loitering
Though the sedge has withered from the lake
and no birds sing.

La Belle Dam Sans Merci

O what can ail thee knight at arms
alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has witherd from the lake
and no birds sing

O what can ail thee knight at arms
so haggard and woebegone?
The squirrel's granary is full
and the harvests 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 sat 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 lulled me asleep
and there I dreamed Ah woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
on the cold hillside

I saw pale kings and princes too
Pale warriors, death pale were they all
They cried 'La Belle Dam Sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
with horrid warning gaped wide
And I awoke and found me here
on the cold hillside

And this is why I soujourn here
alone and palely loitering
Though the sedge has withered from the lake
and no birds sing.