La Belle Dame sans Merci Summary

The speaker notices a knight wandering alone on the road, and asks himself what troubles the knight could possibly have encountered. He appears in a poor physical and emotional state, his skin a deathly pallor. The speaker asks the knight about his troubles. He tells a story about a mysterious woman he met on the hillside. Her wild eyes quickly captivated the knight and, before long, they made love and rode away on the speaker's horse. However, the "faery-like" lady had a few tricks up her sleeve. In her home, a small cave on the hillside, the woman lulled him to sleep. In the knight's dream, he meets kings, princes, and warriors who were also seduced by the woman, only to be left eternally pale and loitering in the woods. He woke up alone, abandoned by the woman, lost like the others.