Song

The Stranger Lighted from His Steed

The stranger lighted from his steed,
And ere he spake a word,
He seiz’d my lady’s lily hand,
And kiss’d it all unheard.

The stranger walk’d into the hall,
And ere he spake a word,
He kiss’d my lady’s cherry lips,
And kiss’d ’em all unheard.

The stranger walk’d into the bower,⁠—
But my lady first did go⁠,⁠—
Ay hand in hand into the bower,
Where my Lord’s roses blow.

My lady’s maid had a silken scarf,
And a golden ring had she,
And a kiss from the stranger, as off he went
Again on his palfrey.

Where this text comes from

First published in Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats (1848). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-19.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/john-keats_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L16.

Cite this poem

John Keats (1795–1821). “Song.” First published in Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats (1848). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/john-keats/song-4/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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