The knight tells the poet that he met a beautiful woman in the meadow who seduced him with food, flowers and song. They spent the day together before she took him to her cave and put him to sleep. He dreamed of past lovers of hers who warned him of her lack of mercy. When he awoke, he was alone on the cold hillside, filled with grief and sorrow. This explains why he now wanders the barren landscape in a miserable state.

2. • The poet asks him why he is sad and
wandering alone near the lake where no
green grass is left and no bird is singing.
• The season is winter.
 Solitude
 sorrow and
 grief
STANZA 1

3. • He asks the knight-at-arms why he is tired
and miserable in appearance.
• The squirrel is done with collecting its grains
and even the harvest is also done.
• A time of loneliness,
• Coldness and grief.
STANZA 2

4. • His face is without color and is pale like a lily
• There are sweat and pain in his forehead that
depicts that the knight-at-arms is sick.
• The color of the knight-at-arms face is fading
quickly like that of a withered rose.
STANZA 3

5. • The knight-at-arms answers that he met a
beautiful lady in the meadows.
• She had long hair, white feet and
passionate eyes.
• She seemed to be a fairy’s child.
STANZA 4

6. • He gifts her a garland (made up of intertwined
flowers) for her head, bracelets and fragrant zone
• A belt made up of flowers for her waist.
STANZA 5

7. • Afterwards, he takes her along with him on his
horse (pacing steed) and the whole day they
spend time with each other.
• The lady also sings songs for the knight-at-arms
that seems to him as the fairy songs i.e. very
melodious.
STANZA 6

8. • The lady than gifts him tasty and sweet food to
eat including tasty roots, honey of wild bees
and sweet gum of mana ash.
• Though he couldn’t understand her language, it
seems to him that she said: “I love you truly” in
her own language.
STANZA 7

9. The lady then takes him to her “Elfin grot” which means small and fairy cave.
There she weeps loudly but the knight-at-arms does not reveal the reason for
it. Perhaps it refers to the way of expressing her love.
The knight-at-arms then kisses her “wild
eyes” and shuts them so that she may
sleep with him. Here again, her eyes are
depicted as wild.
STANZA 8

10. • The lady lulls or in simple words, sends him to sleep.
• The knight-at-arms in the dream sees one of the
most terrifying dreams on the hillside.
 Grief and
 Fear.
STANZA 9

11. • The knight-at-arms sees kings, princes,
warriors who have turned pale and have
dead-like appearance. She is the same
lady who has led them the dread fate.
• All of them warn the knight-at-arms that
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” i.e. beware of
that lady because she is without mercy.
STANZA 10

12. • Seeing their starved (and grieved) lips
which were altogether warning him, the
knight-at-arms he wakes up at once and
finds him alone on the cold hill’s side.
STANZA 11

13. • The knight-at-arms says that this is the reason
why he is wandering all alone along the lake
where there is no grass and at a time when
there is no bird to sing, in miserable condition,
pale face.
STANZA 12

14. • The poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci, in my views,
conveys the message that love, like a flower, is
short-loved. The joy is quite short and suffering is
for ever. It also reflects how beauty can deceive a
person and make him fail or suffer.
• Unlike Happy Insensibility, the poet here does not
celebrate the beauty but rather considers it as something
which causes grief and suffering.
CONCLUSION