Ah what can ail thee, wretched wight,

      Alone and palely loitering;

      The sedge is wither’d from the lake,

      And no birds sing.

      Ah what can ail thee, wretched wight,

      So haggard and so woe-begone?

      The squirrel’s granary is full,

      And the harvest’s done.

      I see a lilly on thy brow,

      With anguish moist and fever dew;

      And on thy cheek a fading rose

      Fast withereth too.

      I met a lady in the meads

      Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;

      Her hair was long, her foot was light,

      And her eyes were wild.

      I set her on my pacing steed,

      And nothing else saw all day long;

      For sideways would she lean, and sing

      A faery’s song.

      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.

      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 gaz’d and sighed deep,

      And there I shut her wild sad eyes —

      So kiss’d to sleep.

      And there we slumber’d on the moss,

      And there I dream’d, ah woe betide

      The latest dream I ever dream’d

      On the cold hill side.

      I saw pale kings, and princes too,

      Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

      Who cry’d— “Le belle Dame sans mercy

      Hath thee in thrall!”

      I saw their starv’d lips in the gloom

      With horrid warning gaped wide,

      And I awoke, and found me here

      On the cold hill 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.

      Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art —

      Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

      And watching, with eternal lids apart,

      Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,

      The moving waters at their priestlike task

      Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

      Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

      Of snow upon the mountains and the moors —

      No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

      Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

      To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

      Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

      Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

      And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

      Not Aladdin magian

      Ever such a work began;

      Not the wizard of the Dee

      Ever such a dream could see;

      Not St John, in Patmos’ Isle,

      In the passion of his toil,

      When he saw the churches seven,

      Golden aisl’d, built up in heaven,

      Gaz’d at such a rugged wonder.

      As I stood its roofing under,

      Lo! I saw one sleeping there,

      On the marble cold and bare.

      While the surges wash’d his feet.

      And his garments white did beat

      Drench’d about the sombre rocks,

      On his neck his well-grown locks,

      Lifted dry above the main,

      Were upon the curl again.

      ‘What is this? and what art thou?’

      Whisper’d I, and touch’d his brow;

      ‘What art thou? and what is this?’

      Whisper’d