Poem: La Belle Dame sans Merci

 

Poem: La Belle Dame sans Merci

LA BELLA DAM SANS MERCI

What are poems?

Poems are the best form of literature. It is a piece of writing arranged in short lines in a musical manner and rhythm. Poems comprise of few lines, few lines of poem give great moral of life. poems express one's thoughts and feeling in the best expressive way and are the best way to convey emotion or ideas to the reader's or listener's mind. We get three words Poesy (the creation), poet (the creator), and poem ( the created) from the Greek verbs. Different forms of poetry are Ballads, sonnets, Doha, and rhyming completely. Poems are the oldest, ancient form of literature.

Through poems, the hearts can be won soon. Fredric P. Saboteur said, " I have won many female relations with this valid resource."

The great poets of English literature are William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, D.H. Lawrence, Rabindranath Tagore, Henry Longfellow, and many more.

About the poet of the poem LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI.

John Keats - Romantic poet

John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 in London he was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death. He died at the young age of 25 suffering from tuberculosis on 23 February 1821 in Rome.

Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew after his death, and by the end of the 19th century, he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. The poetry of Keats is characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. This is typical of romantic poets, as they aimed to accentuate extreme emotion through an emphasis on natural imagery. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analyzed in English literature.

Some of the most acclaimed works by Keats are “Ode to a Nightingale”, "Sleep and Poetry", and the famous sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer".

About the poem LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI.

Summary:

The speaker of the poem comes across a "knight at arms" alone, and apparently dying, in a field somewhere. He asks him what's going on, and the knight's answer takes up the rest of the poem. The knight says that he met a beautiful fairy lady in the fields. He started hanging out with her, making flower garlands for her, letting her ride on his horse, and generally flirting like knights do. Finally, she invited him back to her fairy cave. Sweet, thought the knight. But after they were through smooching, she "lulled" him to sleep, and he had a nightmare about all the knights and kings and princes that the woman had previously seduced – they were all dead. And then he woke up, alone, on the side of a hill somewhere.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

In the first stanza, the speaker questions the knight who is 'alone and palely loitering.' What's the pain to the knight that he looks ill. The edge of the lake is withered and there are no birds singing this indicates it is the time of evening or autumn or the early winter that birds are migrated.

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.

The knight at arm doesn't answer the question immediately, in the second stanza poet repeats the question. The second stanza gives two more adjectives to knight in pain 'haggard', and 'woe-begone'.

Last two lines of the stanza the squirrel's granary is full and the harvesting in the field is complete shows that it is sure late autumn.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

The third stanza is giving the physical appearance of a knight in pain. The speaker in the third stanza is still addressing the knight, 'lily of thy brow' signifies the knight is depressed or is in tension. his face is as pale as a lily. The words 'moist' and the 'fever drops' obviously prove that the knight is sick. In the last two lines of the stanza the face of the knight is compared with the fading rose it says how the color of the knight is fading away due to pain and depression.

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.

Suddenly in stanza four, the knight answers the unnamed speaker. He reports that he met a beautiful lady in the meadows, she was a fairy- 'faery's child' princess from heaven. He describes the physical appearance of the lady he met. She had beautiful long hair, the knight described his graceful movement and her eyes were wild. she attracted the knight and made him fall for her.

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

The fifth stanza shows the love moments between the knight and the lady. The knight makes the 'garland'- a flower wreath for the lady's head and 'bracelets' too which enhances the natural perfume. Lady with love in her eyes and moaning showed that she was feeling in love with the knight with every passing movement.

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.

Stanza sixth is a continuation of stanza fifth the knight takes the fairy lady for a a ride on his horse -'pacing steed' doing nothing whole day. they enjoy each other's company and the fairy lady sings the fairy song for knight.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

‘I love thee true’.

Fairy lady to show up her love for knight brought him some relish sweets - 'honey wild and manna dew.' The fairy lady tells the knight that she loves him, but she says it "in language strange." He doesn't say what language it is, or how he's able to understand her. Maybe he's just hearing what he wants to hear, or maybe her magical influence has enabled him to understand her "language strange."

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.

In the eighth stanza the fairy lady takes the knight to her 'Elfin grot' a sort of magical place knight associates with fairy creatures such as elves. Suddenly reaching the cave the fairy lady bursts into tears cries out loud- 'sighed full sore'. The knight tries to soothe with his kisses that shut her “wild wild eyes”—words that suggest he has fallen in love with a creature that he cannot possess.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

On the cold hill side.

By the ninth stanza the knight comes to the present duration he further describes his horrible dream which made him loitering alone on the sedge. the fairy lady 'lulled' him to sleep and he dreamt, the memory of dream exclaimed him 'ah! woe betide!' which explained lot grief and sorrow. It was the last and the latest dream he dreamt on the cold hillside.

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!’

In the tenth stanza of poem the knight describes his dreams, the knight sees kings, princes and warriors they all were in 'death pale' the fact is the word pale is repeated thrice in the the stanza. The pale warriors, kings and princes were crying out loud ' LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI.' Finally we reach to the title of the poem in tenth stanza; the title is in french translating it it is " a beautiful lady without mercy (pity). kings, warriors and princess cried out 'in thrall' with power.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill’s side.

The knight continues to describe the pale warriors from his dream – in the 'gloam,' or dusk, all he can make out are their 'lips.' Their mouths are 'starved' and hungry-looking, and their mouths are all open as they cry out their warning to the knight. suddenly, the kinght wakes up from the dream finds himself on the cold hillside, feeling the deathlike cold of his dream and looking like the sad figure.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

In stanza twelve, the knight notes that his experience with the lady is why he remains in this bleak (bare) setting, alone and feeling that he has lost the love of this beautiful figure that haunts and blights not only his life but also the world in which he finds himself. And the first stanza of the poem is repeated with the answer.

This deceptively simple tale written in a ballad style, featuring short lines and romantic longings, evokes the human yearning for an eternal, imperishable love, a bond that outlasts death and that conquers mortality. To lose the lady is tantamount to a kind of death for the knight. Thus, John Keats uses the medieval setting as a kind of allegory, a symbolic representation of what love represents. To the lover, the beloved is a fairy creature usually associated with perfection and with the desire to do good and to protect the loved one.

Meanings:

ail- pain

thee- you

pale- without energy

sedge- a grass- like plant

haggard- looking exhausted and unwell

woe begone- sad or miserable in appearance

anguish- mental or physical pain

withereth- become dry

meads- meadows

garland- a wreath of flowers and leaves, worn on the head or hung as a decoration

pacing steed- horse

elfin- having to do with elves

grot- cave

lulled- calm or send to sleep

hath- have

thrall- power

gloam- dusk

gaped- become wide open

sojourn- a temporary stay