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La Belle Dame Sans Merci

from The Ridgeway by Dragonsfly

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about

A famous poem by Keats put to music by Tom Drury and Brian Curran.

lyrics

What can ail thee knight at arms?
Alone and paily loitering
Though sedge has withered from the lake
And no birds sing

What can ail thee knight at arms?
So haggered and so woe begone
The squirrel's granary is full
And the harvest is done.

I see a lily on thy brow
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 faery's child
Her hair was long, her step was light
And her eyes were so wild

I made a garland for her hair
And bracelets too, a fragrant zone.
She looked at me as she did love
And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed
And little else saw all day long
For she would sideways bend and sing
A faery's song

She found me roots of relish sweet
Honey wild and manna dew
And sure in language strange she cried
"I love thee true"

She took me to her elfin grot
And there she wept and sighed full sore
And there I closed her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four

And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I've ever dreamt
On a cold hillside

I saw pale kings and princes too
Pale warriors, death pale were they all
They cried "La belle dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall"

I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaping wide
And I awoke here alone
On a cold hillside

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and paily loitering
Though sedge has withered from the lake
And no birds sing
No birds sing.

credits

from The Ridgeway, released August 16, 2018

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Dragonsfly Glastonbury, UK

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