'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 lulléd 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!"
'I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapéd 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 wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.'
J. Keats