“O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.”

— John Keats , book La Belle Dame sans Merci

Stanza I
La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds…" by John Keats?

John Keats 211

English Romantic poet 1795–1821

Related quotes

“For serving thee an arm to arms addressed;
for singing thee a soul the Muses raise.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Pera servir-vos, braço às armas feito,
Pera cantar-vos, mente às Musas dada.
Stanza 155, line 1–2 (tr. Richard Francis Burton)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto X

“The azure lake is argent now
Beneath the pale moonshine:
I seek a sign of hope in heaven:
Fair Polestar! thou are mine.
A thousand other beacons blaze;
I follow thee alone…”

Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–1897) English poet and critic

"Midnight At Geneva".

“O Blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

To the Cuckoo, st. 1 (1804).

“Captain or Colonel, or Knight in Arms,
Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
If ever deed of honour did thee please,
Guard them, and him within protect from harms.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Sonnet VIII: When the Assault was Intended to the City

“The Maple puts her corals on in May,
While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling,
To be in tune with what the robins sing.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Sonnet, The Maple http://www.theatlantic.com/ideastour/archive/lowell.mhtml (1875)

“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Although it appears on U.S. postage featuring Angelou, this is actually a variant quote from the work of poet Joan Walsh Anglund.
Misattributed
Source: Postal Service releases Maya Angelou stamp with quote from another author, Josh Hicks, 7 April 2015, Washington Post, 9 April 2015 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/04/07/postal-serves-releases-maya-angelou-stamp-with-quote-from-another-author/,

“In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Stanzas to Augusta (1816), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“The long struggle is ended. I must pass away. Good-by. O, men are so cold and hard and half conscious toward their suffering fellows. Nobody understands. O my mother! and O my little girl! What will become of you? And the poor four-footed! May the long years be merciful! Take me to my river. There, where the wild birds sing and the waters go on and on, alone in my groves, forever.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Suicide note

“A bird doesn't sing because he has an answer, he sings because he has a song”

Joan Walsh Anglund (1926) American poet and children's book author

The quote has been misattributed to Maya Angelou at times, including on U.S. postage.
This quote by Joan Walsh Anglund (1967 in her book, A Cup of Sun) has been widely used by Maya Angelou without attribution to Walsh Walsh Anglund, and wrongly misattributed to Maya Angelou many, many times, including on U.S. postage. However, the quote belongs to Joan Walsh Anglund, and is from her book "A Cup of Sun" published in 1967. However, Maya Angelou changed the pronoun "He" to "It" but quoted everything else of Joan Walsh Anglund. Why Maya Angelou never attributed her most famous quote as being Joan Walsh Anglund's is still a mystery to this day.
Source: A Cup of Sun: A Book of Poems (1967)

“Even the birds above the lake
Are singing of my love,
And even the flowers along the shore
Are growing for her sake.

All the vines are ripening
And the trees come into bud,
For my love's footsteps passing by
Are summoning the spring.

Rian's stars in the night
Shine more brightly over her,
The god's moon and the goddess's
Guard her with their light.

Even the birds above the lake
Are singing of my love,
And even the flowers along the shore
Are growing for her sake”

Guy Gavriel Kay (1954) Canadian author of fantasy fiction

Source: A Song for Arbonne

“O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,Alone and palely loitering?The sedge has wither'd from the lake,And no birds sing.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

John Keats 211

Related quotes

Related topics

“O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.”