| Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
 | 
| Alone and palely loitering?
 | 
| The sedge has withered from the lake,
 | 
| And no birds sing.
 | 
| II 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.
 | 
| III
 | 
| I see a lily on thy brow,
 | 
| With anguish moist and fever-dew,
 | 
| And on thy cheeks a fading rose
 | 
| Fast withereth too.
 | 
| IV 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.
 | 
| VI 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.
 | 
| VII
 | 
| She found me roots of relish sweet,
 | 
| And honey wild, and manna-dew,
 | 
| And sure in language strange she said —
 | 
| 'I love thee true'.
 | 
| VIII
 | 
| 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.
 | 
| IX And there she lulled me asleep
 | 
| And there I dreamed — 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
 | 
| Hath thee in thrall!'
 | 
| XI I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
 | 
| With horrid warning gaped wide,
 | 
| And I awoke and found me here,
 | 
| On the cold hill’s side.
 | 
| XII
 | 
| And this is why I sojourn here
 | 
| Alone and palely loitering,
 | 
| Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
 | 
| And no birds sing. |