"The Fox Woman Kuzunoha
Leaving Her Child"
by Yoshitoshi, 1890
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
--John Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (1819, a year before his death of consumption).
In Korea, the most...
