That Keats was a master of both ways of obtaining a romantic effect is shown by his _La Belle Dame Sans Merci_, considered by some people his masterpiece, where the rich detail of _The Eve of St. Agnes_ is replaced by reserve and suggestion.
As the poem was not included in the volume published in 1820, it is given here.
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. . ..
NOTES ON ISABELLA.
_Metre._ The _ottava rima_ of the Italians, the natural outcome of Keats's turning to Italy for his story. This stanza had been used by Chaucer and the Elizabethans, and recently by Hookham Frere in _The Monks and the Giants_ and by Byron in _Don Juan_. Compare Keats's use of the form with that of either of his contemporaries, and notice how he avoids the epigrammatic close, telling in satire and mock-heroic, but inappropriate to a serious and romantic poem.
PAGE 49. l. 2. _palmer_, pilgrim. As the pilgrim seeks for a shrine where, through the patron saint, he may worship God, so Lorenzo needs a woman to worship, through whom he may worship Love.
PAGE 50. l. 21. _constant as her vespers_, as often as she said her evening-prayers.
PAGE 51. l. 34. _within . . . domain_, where it should, naturally, have been rosy.
PAGE 52. l. 46. _Fever'd . . . bridge._ Made his sense of her worth more passionate.
ll. 51-2. _wed To every symbol._ Able to read every sign.
PAGE 53. l. 62. _fear_, make afraid. So used by Shakespeare: e.g. 'Fear boys with bugs,' _Taming of the Shrew_, I. ii. 211.
l. 64. _shrive_, confess. As the pilgrim cannot be at peace till he has confessed his sins and received absolution, so Lorenzo feels the necessity of confessing his love.
PAGE 54. ll. 81-2. _before the dusk . . . veil._ A vivid picture of the twilight time, after sunset, but before it is dark enough for the stars to shine brightly.
ll. 83-4. The repetition of the same words helps us to feel the unchanging nature of their devotion and joy in one another.
PAGE 55. l. 91. _in fee_, in payment for their trouble.
