La Belle Dame Sans Regrets

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, [What’s up with you, knight?] Alone and palely loitering? [Alone, looking pale and holding the walls up] The sedge has wither’d from the lake, [The grass-like plant with a triangular stem often growing in wet areas is dead] And no birds sing. .[Birds don’t sing—gee, that one was tough]

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! [Knight, what’s your problem?] So haggard and so woe-begone? [You look awful and what’s with the long face?] The squirrel’s granary is full, [It’s not like you’re starving …] And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow [A lily?! …. You look pale?] With anguish moist and fever dew, [makes you look sickly …]
And on thy cheeks a fading rose [You still look pale—color’s gone from your cheeks] Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads, [I met a lady in the meadows] Full beautiful—a faery’s child, [A lovely fairy child] Her hair was long, her foot was light, [She had long hair and was light on her feet]
And her eyes were wild. [She had wild eyes]

I made a garland for her head, [Made a circlet of flowers for her hair] And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; [made little ones for her arms and …] She look’d at me as she did love, [She looked at me—she loved me] And made sweet moan. [and moaned so sweet …]

I set her on my pacing steed, [I put her on my horse] And nothing else saw all day long, [and spent the day with her] For sidelong would she bend, and sing [every now and then she would sing] A faery’s song. [a fairy song]

She found me roots of relish sweet, [Yum—she dug up some sweet roots] And honey wild, and manna dew, [wild honey and the hardened sugary exudation of various trees] And sure in language strange she said— [She talked strange and said] “I love thee true.” [ I truly love you]

She took me to her elfin grot, [She took me to her small elfin cave (usually with attractive features)] And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore, [Wept and sighed] And there I shut her wild wild eyes [So I closed her wild wild eyes] With kisses four. [with four kisses]

And there she lulled me asleep, [She lulled me to sleep] And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide! [I had a bad dream] The latest dream I ever dream’d [I never had a dream like this one]
On the cold hill’s side. [It was cold]

I saw pale kings and princes too, [Kings and princes were pale too] Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; [Everyone needed a tan] They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci [They cried “lady without regrets”] Hath thee in thrall!” [we think so highly of you]

I saw their starved lips in the gloam, [I saw their starved lips in the twilight] With horrid warning gaped wide, [what a horrid wake up call!] And I awoke and found me here, [Woke up and here I was] On the cold hill’s side. [Sleeping out in the cold on some hill]

And this is why I sojourn here, [So, I’m back] Alone and palely loitering, [Alone, looking pale and holding the walls up] Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake, [Even though this isn’t the happiest place] And no birds sing.