John Keats, Robert Graves, Nancy Sinatra and Cliff Richard

I first encountered Keat's La Belle dame Sans Merci when I was 15. It moved me in a way I couldn't have described at the time, almost like an echo of a lost dream that I was yet to experience.

Here it is:



Graves, in The White Goddess (a must-read if there ever was one) connects it to the myth of Merlin and Nimue, to the theme of seduction, betrayal and abandonment by the Muse. Now I yield to no one in my admiration for Graves (He was a hell of a poet), but I'm not sure I agree with this. To me it has a dreamy quality, the sorrow of the knight is understandable in the light of a magickal fuck being lost to him ( the reference to 'making sweet moan' is clear) but would he have preferred it not to have happened? I think not.

We now move on a hundred years or so to 1967 and the 'summer of love'. I was 16 at the time and, as the song says, 'Ah yes, I remember it well' There was something special about that year, a glimpse of light beyond the veil. Like the knight's experience, it was a brief glimpse, but it was good while it lasted. Interestingly enough, two singles were released that year which were more or less direct transpositions of La Belle dame Sans Merci.

First this from Nacy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood



I really don't have to explain what 'Summer Wine' represents, do I?

And then there was Cliff:


Even devout christians have their moments . . .

In later life I was to have a few encounters of this nature, for a moment life presents us with The Dream as a living reality. Then it passes. We are foolish if we try to hang on to it. Enjoy, learn and be grateful. There is always more to come.