John Keats: La belle dame sans merci & other poems

John Keats

(London, 31 october 1795 – Rome, 23 february 1821)

La belle dame sans merci

Oh what can ail thee Knight at arms

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the Lake

And no birds sing.

Oh 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 look’d 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 sigh’d full sore,

And there I shut her wild, wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,

And there I dream’d, 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 starv’d lips in the gloam

With horrid warning gaped 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. . ..

Ode to a nightingale

1

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,–

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

2

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

3

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

4

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

5

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;

And mid-May’s eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

6

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain–

To thy high requiem become a sod.

7

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

8

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:–Do I wake or sleep?

Fancy

Ever let the Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home:

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;

Then let winged Fancy wander

Through the thought still spread beyond her:

Open wide the mind’s cage-door,

She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.

O sweet Fancy! let her loose;

Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,

And the enjoying of the Spring

Fades as does its blossoming;

Autumn’s red-lipp’d fruitage too,

Blushing through the mist and dew,

Cloys with tasting: What do then?

Sit thee by the ingle, when

The sear faggot blazes bright,

Spirit of a winter’s night;

When the soundless earth is muffled,

And the caked snow is shuffled

From the ploughboy’s heavy shoon;

When the Night doth meet the Noon

In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.

Sit thee there, and send abroad,

With a mind self-overaw’d,

Fancy, high-commission’d:–send her!

She has vassals to attend her:

She will bring, in spite of frost,

Beauties that the earth hath lost;

She will bring thee, all together,

All delights of summer weather;

All the buds and bells of May,

From dewy sward or thorny spray

All the heaped Autumn’s wealth,

With a still, mysterious stealth:

She will mix these pleasures up

Like three fit wines in a cup,

And thou shalt quaff it:–thou shalt hear

Distant harvest-carols clear;

Rustle of the reaped corn;

Sweet birds antheming the morn:

And, in the same moment–hark!

‘Tis the early April lark,

Or the rooks, with busy caw,

Foraging for sticks and straw.

Thou shalt, at one glance, behold

The daisy and the marigold;

White-plum’d lilies, and the first

Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;

Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;

And every leaf, and every flower

Pearled with the self-same shower.

Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep

Meagre from its celled sleep;

And the snake all winter-thin

Cast on sunny bank its skin;

Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see

Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,

When the hen-bird’s wing doth rest

Quiet on her mossy nest;

Then the hurry and alarm

When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

Acorns ripe down-pattering,

While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;

Every thing is spoilt by use:

Where’s the cheek that doth not fade,

Too much gaz’d at? Where’s the maid

Whose lip mature is ever new?

Where’s the eye, however blue,

Doth not weary? Where’s the face

One would meet in every place?

Where’s the voice, however soft,

One would hear so very oft?

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.

Let, then, winged Fancy find

Thee a mistress to thy mind:

Dulcet-eyed as Ceres’ daughter,

Ere the God of Torment taught her

How to frown and how to chide;

With a waist and with a side

White as Hebe’s, when her zone

Slipt its golden clasp, and down

Fell her kirtle to her feet,

While she held the goblet sweet,

And Jove grew languid.–Break the mesh

Of the Fancy’s silken leash;

Quickly break her prison-string

And such joys as these she’ll bring.–

Let the winged Fancy roam

Pleasure never is at home.

Lines on The Mermaid Tavern

Souls of Poets dead and gone,

What Elysium have ye known,

Happy field or mossy cavern,

Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

Have ye tippled drink more fine

Than mine host’s Canary wine?

Or are fruits of Paradise

Sweeter than those dainty pies

Of venison? O generous food!

Drest as though bold Robin Hood

Would, with his maid Marian,

Sup and bowse from horn and can.

I have heard that on a day

Mine host’s sign-board flew away,

Nobody knew whither, till

An astrologer’s old quill

To a sheepskin gave the story,

Said he saw you in your glory,

Underneath a new old-sign

Sipping beverage divine,

And pledging with contented smack

The Mermaid in the Zodiac.

Souls of Poets dead and gone,

What Elysium have ye known,

Happy field or mossy cavern,

Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

Robin Hood

To a friend

No! those days are gone away,

And their hours are old and gray,

And their minutes buried all

Under the down-trodden pall

Of the leaves of many years:

Many times have winter’s shears,

Frozen North, and chilling East,

Sounded tempests to the feast

Of the forest’s whispering fleeces,

Since men knew nor rent nor leases.

No, the bugle sounds no more,

And the twanging bow no more;

Silent is the ivory shrill

Past the heath and up the hill;

There is no mid-forest laugh,

Where lone Echo gives the half

To some wight, amaz’d to hear

Jesting, deep in forest drear.

On the fairest time of June

You may go, with sun or moon,

Or the seven stars to light you,

Or the polar ray to right you;

But you never may behold

Little John, or Robin bold;

Never one, of all the clan,

Thrumming on an empty can

Some old hunting ditty, while

He doth his green way beguile

To fair hostess Merriment,

Down beside the pasture Trent;

For he left the merry tale

Messenger for spicy ale.

Gone, the merry morris din;

Gone, the song of Gamelyn;

Gone, the tough-belted outlaw

Idling in the “grenè shawe;”

All are gone away and past!

And if Robin should be cast

Sudden from his turfed grave,

And if Marian should have

Once again her forest days,

She would weep, and he would craze:

He would swear, for all his oaks,

Fall’n beneath the dockyard strokes,

Have rotted on the briny seas;

She would weep that her wild bees

Sang not to her–strange! that honey

Can’t be got without hard money!

So it is: yet let us sing,

Honour to the old bow-string!

Honour to the bugle-horn!

Honour to the woods unshorn!

Honour to the Lincoln green!

Honour to the archer keen!

Honour to tight little John,

And the horse he rode upon!

Honour to bold Robin Hood,

Sleeping in the underwood!

Honour to maid Marian,

And to all the Sherwood-clan!

Though their days have hurried by

Let us two a burden try.

Ode on melancholy

1

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;

For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

2

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

3

She dwells with Beauty–Beauty that must die;

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight

Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;

His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,

And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

John Keats: La belle dame sans merci & other poems

 

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