At first glance, I didn’t really understand much and have no background in french so the title didn’t help me either. After a translation, I found it to mean “The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy”. The poem is a ballad. It revolves around a Knight who falls in love with a fairy-like woman and gets enchanted by her. He imagines everything the woman says as a declaration of love – “And sure in language strange she said— ‘I love thee true’” and everything she does as a lover’s touch. He pours his energy into making her “bracelets” and “garlands” in return for her affection and love. The poem takes place in the “meads” or a meadow, it starts here and goes full circle and ends here as well. His love for the fairy-like woman slowly transforms into obsession and he cherishes every illusion and thought he’s had of her. His obsession has made him a victim of the beautiful lady without mercy and is now lifeless and “Alone and palely loitering” near the lake desperate for an illusion of the fairy-like woman. I think the poem is very complicated and indirect, I couldn’t really figure it out until multiple readings and peer discussions.
Well, this is pretty straightforward on a literal level (a bit of a ghost story), but it gets more interesting as a look at “negative capability” or “isn’t the knight Gatsby?” and the faerie, weeping, is Daisy crying into the shirts?