No More Learning

There is another method of description, quite as beautiful in its way,
which Coleridge adopted with magic effect in _Christabel_. This is to
use the power of suggestion, to say very little, but that little of a
kind to awaken the reader's imagination and make him complete the
picture. For example, we are told of Christabel--

Her gentle limbs did she undress
And lay down in her loveliness.

Compare this with stanza xxvi of _The Eve of St. Agnes_.

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.