Sunday, December 5, 2010

John Keats: La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad


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File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - La Belle Dame sans Merci, 1855, pen and pencil.jpg

La Belle Dame sans Merci: Dane Gabriel Rossetti, c.1855 (British Museum)



O what can ail thee, knight at arms,
..Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
..And no birds sing.



http://faculty.css.edu/phagen/hon4777pr/asiddal3.jpg

Lady Affixing Pennant to a Knight's Spear
: Elizabeth Siddal, 1861



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.


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Fairy Feller's Master Stroke: Richard Dadd, 1855-1864 (Tate Gallery)


I see a lily on thy brow
..With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
..Fast withereth too.


File:Chant d'Amour 1868-73 Edward Burne-Jones.jpg

Chant d'Amour
: Edward Burne-Jones
, 1866-1873 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)


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.


File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - La Belle Dame sans Merci, 1848.jpg

La Belle Dame sans Merci: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1848


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.



File:W. J. Neatby - Keats - La Belle Dame Sans Merci.jpg

La Belle Dame sans Merci: W.J. Neatby, 1899 (illustration in A Day with Keats, 1913)


I set her on my pacing steed,
..And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
..A fairy's song.



File:Redgirl and knight02.jpg

La Belle Dame sans Merci: Frank Bernard Dicksee, 1890


She found me roots of relish sweet,
..And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
..I love thee true.



File:La Belle Dame Sans Merci.jpg

La Belle Dame sans Merci: Walter Crane, 1865


She took me to her elfin grot,
..And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
..With kisses four.


File:La Belle Dame Sans Merci2.jpg

La Belle Dame sans Merci: John William Waterhouse, 1893


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.




La Belle Dame sans Merci: Arthur Hughes, 1861-1863


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!"


File:Henry Meynell Rheam - La Belle Dame sans Merci.jpg

La Belle Dame sans Merci: Henry Meynell Rheam, 1901


I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
..With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here
..On the cold hill's side.



http://faculty.css.edu/phagen/hon4777pr/cowperbelle.jpg

La Belle Dame sans Merci: Frank Cadogan Cowper, 1926


And this is why I sojourn here,
..Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
..And no birds sing.



File:La Belle Dame sans Merci - Punch cartoon - Project Gutenberg eText 19105.png

La Belle Dame sans Merci: artist unknown, from Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 159, 1 December 1920


La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad: John Keats, 21 April 1819