victim of temptress, patriarchal world

• o what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?'


  clear illness and suffering at hands of faery, sense of chevalric code and greater purpose/morality, clearly masculine + good, close to death
• so haggard and so woe-begone'


  after same line as start of previous stanza ('o...-arms'), shows lack of health by repetition in stanzas, shows he has been through something- sets up flashback of rest of poem
• i see a lily on thy brow with anguish moist and fever dew'


  shadowself- lack of energy, seems like a funeral- flowers link due to meaning behind them, blazon- shows him in a feminine light
• her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild'


  desire and attraction due to physical characteristics, underlying sense of danger (for both parties- her untamed nature and his obvious passionate intensity), clearly appealing
• she looked at me as she did love, and made sweet moan'


  limit of perspective, his own interpretation of her actions, knight seems to be an agent, juxtaposition of her wildness vs sweetness
• for sidelong would she bend, and sing a faery's song'


  no clear meaning behind her song, difference in their worlds, moving away from him?
• she found me roots of relish sweet, and honey wild, and manna dew, and sure in language strange she said - i love thee true'


  is she tempting him or returning affection or being kind? moving into her world as he eats fruits of it, limit of perspective due to lack of understanding her language
• she took me to her elfin grot'


  closing off from mortal world, luring him? trying to leave?
• and there she lulled me asleep, and there i dreamed - ah! woe betide!'


  soothing and gentle or evil and luring, clear it was a bad decision to enter grot, interjection of current knight
• i saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale were they all, they cried - la belle dame sans merci hath thee in her thrall'


  attempt to warn him in vain, already entrapped, ghosts from a patriarchal and courtly world but now seemingly lost identity
• and this is why i sojourn here, alone and palely loitering'


  explained why he journeyed there, now purposeless, lacks his previous masculine drive
• 'i saw their starv'd lips in the gloam, with horrid warning gaping wide'


  ideas of starvation linked to winter, no longer harvest, too late to save him