The Beautiful Lady Without Pity

In "La Belle Dame Sans Mercy," John Keats creates the imaginary world that seems so real to someone in love. Keats relies on nature as well as fantasy in establishing contrasting worlds - one is a luscious paradise filled with mythical beings and endless possibilities while the other is a bleak swamp in which no birds sing and there are virtually no signs of life. As the now "wretched" and "haggard" man "palely" loiters about a swamp, Keats describes the man's face as possessing images of both a lily and a rose - symbols for death, and love respectively. The man, who can be seen as Keats himself, then goes on to describe the mythical fairy he met in the "meads", which acts a parallel to the swampy marsh he now finds himself in. The man instantly falls for the beautiful fairy, but as he describes setting her atop his "pacing steed", it seems as though she is reluctant to reciprocate. She soon tells the man that she does indeed love him, bringing him to her "elfin grot". While Keats uses this fantastical imagery, what he is alluding to is something much more simple. The fairy's act of bringing the man to her grotto is akin to a woman allowing someone into her life - developing a more personal bond, learning dark secrets, perhaps even meeting the parents.

The man lays with his lover, but it becomes apparent that she is deeply troubled by her own demons. As she gazes into nothing and "sigh(s) deep", her "wild sad eyes" shut and the two fall asleep. When the man awakes, the fairy is gone and he is left to sit alone on a "cold hill side" which bears no resemblance to the grotto he was in previously. The man, who has loved and lost, is transported back to a startling reality - one that is without beautiful meadows, fairies, and grottos. The fantasy world described by Keats was not entirely true, but far from a figment of the man's imagination. Rather, it was derived from the true emotions that the young lover truly felt. There never was a real fairy, grotto, or even a meadow. Instead, there was a love affair with a girl whose presence made the entire world seem brighter. Now that she is gone, life seems worthless by comparison. The poem ends with repetition from the first stanza, describing the man's current state: "Alone and palely loitering,/Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,/And no birds sing."