La Belle Dame Sans Merci, by John Keats

Oh, what doth ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is withered from the lake
And no birds sing.

Oh, what doth ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so webegone?
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 fairy's child;
Her hair was long, her step was light
And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long
For sideways she would bend and sing
A fairy song.

I made her bracelets for her wrists
A girdle too, of fragrant zone,
She looked at me as she did love
And made sweet moan.

She fed me roots and fairy food
And quenched my thirst with manna dew.
And sure in language strange she said
'I love thee true'.

I took her to her elfin grot,
And there she sighed and wept full sore,
And then I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dreamt--ah, woe betide!--
The latest dream I e'er dreamed
On the cold hill's side.

I saw pale kings, pale 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
In horrid warning gaped wide--
And then I woke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.

And that is why I tarry here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake
And no birds sing."

***
Phew. Perdonen lo malo, as they would say in Latin America; part of the game is not to review the poem before I take my crack at it, and I am fairly sure I am missing a stanza and have done some strange things to this one.

I think this is one of the greatest poems ever written (short lyrical poems category). It manages both to be incredibly direct and intensely lyrical and ambiguous; the author implies so much so successfully that it's a little surprising to go over it and see what isn't there. It's also set at roughly this time of year, which makes it extra appropriate for present purposes.