The poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats is a ballad that expresses all of Keats' philosophies of happiness and the ideal world while, at the same time, being an enchanting love story on a simpler level. The poem contains his "pleasure thermometer" which leads to Keats' idea of happiness. The poem also contains Keats' vision of an ideal world where nothing ends or dies.

The poem begins with a narrator questioning a Knight at arms. The Knight is seen wandering around lifelessly and listlessly. Not only is he lifeless, but, around him, the whole forest is dying as well. "The sedge has withered from the Lake/ And no birds sing!" (Keats, p506 lines 3-4) The Knight is feverish, a word Keats uses to depict starvation and intense longing. The color on the Knight's cheeks is fading like the flora.

The Knight begins his narrative of...