We have already noticed the organization of the poem into two discourses—the questions of the stranger in the first three stanzas, and the knight's reply in the following nine. But within this pattern, another, more intricate and significant, is at work. In this inner configuration the poem falls into four equal groups of three stanzas each, the first of which is the symbol-making address of the stranger. The next six stanzas, the narrative core of the poem, tell of the direct relations of the knight and the fairy lady; of these the first three constitute one unit, and the last three another, the grouping and distinctness being marked by the two opening patterns: "I met," "I made," "I set"; and "She found," "She took," "And there she lulled me." The final unit of three stanzas in.....
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