Rhythm and Meter in La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Rhythm and Meter in La Belle Dame Sans Merci

La Belle Dame Sans Merci has a meter of 8 syllables per line through the first three lines of the stanza, with the last one varying between 4 and 5 syllables. It is divided into 12 stanzas, four lines each, following a rhyming pattern of abcb. 

If we compare the poem to a classical ballad, we can see the clear difference: 

'I am a man upon the land
I am a silkie on the sea
and when I'm far and far frae land
my home it is in Sule Skerry.'

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O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! 5
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

Here we can spot a clear difference in the ending of the stanza. While the classic example illustrates 4-4-4-4, that is, four stresses per line; the second stanza, the Keats excerpt, has four stresses in the first three lines but in the last one it has three. This is uncommon. 

Another example: 

'GOD prosper long our noble king,
Our liffes and safetyes all;
A woefull hunting once there did
In Chevy-Chace befall.'

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'I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”'

These sections are evidently dissimilar. The former follows a 4-3-4-3 pattern, a classic structural scheme; however, the latter is 4-4-4-2. Not only does this layout destroy the musicality of the ballad, but it also forces the reader to notice its artificiality as it is not how a ballad is supposed to be composed. 

This subversion is crucial: Keats wanted to break away from structure, much like all romantic authors; he wanted to make a statement that came from the heart and was fueled by passion, and if it was unstructured and wild, better. This rebelliousness lies at the core of romanticism: the meaning of this last line has to do with Keats' intention of eliminating the musicality from the ballad and thus wringing out the merry nature of it. Keats reinforces the solemn and reflective, almost remorseful, mood of the poem by alienating musicality from it.