Nature in "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"

In both the first and second published versions of Keats's poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", nature appears in nearly every single stanza, used metaphorically and sometimes literally. In the first stanza, we see examples of literal nature used to represent the scene in which the subject of this short tale, the “Knight” or “wright” is found. The "sedge" or marsh grass having withered from the lake is symbolic of death, and the birds ceasing to sing could be interpreted the same way. It could also be interpreted simply as an absence of music or happiness having disappeared from the new scene in which the narrator has stumbled into. Another example is the "roots of relish sweet, manna/And honey wild, and honey dew", which could maybe be a metaphor for heavenly delights that are not food, but could also be meant literally as delicious food found by the Knight's enchantress.

What I found most interesting, though, was the repetition of nature-themed metaphors found in this poem, especially after it was cleaned up and edited. The third stanza is solely comprised of nature metaphors! And they are beautiful!

“I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew;

And on thy cheek a fading rose

Fast withereth too.”

The strong morbid tone that was created in the first stanza is continued here with constant images of death: the “lily”, the “dew” here representing feverishness and an unhealthy-looking condition, and the loss of pink color of his face (“a rose fading”). The word “wither” is also brought back from the first stanza, but in a new way. In the first stanza, it was the world around the Knight that was withering, and reflected how he was feeling. In this stanza, however, the metaphors based on nature are used to describe the Knight himself. I think it is used as a means of transition from the narrator speaking to the Knight describing his dream and current emotional condition. If anyone else reads this that has other suggestions about why Keats would make this shift in description, please comment and let me know.