La Belle Dame avec Merci   Oh, I was haggard, all right. Woebegone, bad. Alone and pale, loitering my way through life, half listening for even one bird to sing — but nothing sang, before. Days in the saddle, in that armor, all dents and rust — such was the flower of knighthood. All that fighting — for what? Pity? I went ten years without pity, or pay. I could survive, just.                       But one winter afternoon when dew hung stubborn on the hill, you roused me from my fever dream, your eyes shone, you knelt beside me there, kissed my anguished brow, swept me with your raven hair. Before long our hill glowed bright with gladness and birdsong.                                                                     for Meg     © Michael Fleming New Ipswich, New Hampshire February 2007