A Chat With The Fairy Queen

Tuesday, February 6th, 2018 -- by Bacchus

When the Fairy Queen says “Awake! Arise!” well, I guess you’d better wake and rise:

poetry illustration: bare-breasted queen mab descends to wake up a naked sleeping Ianthe

The artwork is signed somewhat indistinctly (see the larger size for a better view of the signature) but I believe the signature is “Frank T. Merrill” for American illustrator Frank Thayer Merrill. The art comes from the version of “Queen Mab” found within this 1904 edition of The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. It seems to illustrate these lines from the poem:

From her celestial car
The Fairy Queen descended,
And thrice she waved her wand
Circled with wreaths of amaranth:
Her thin and misty form
Moved with the moving air.
And the clear silver tones,
As thus she spoke, were such
As are unheard by all but gifted ear.

Soul of Ianthe!
Awake ! arise !
Sudden arose
Ianthe’s Soul; it stood
All beautiful in naked purity.
The perfect semblance of its bodily frame.
Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace.
Each stain of earthliness
Had passed away, it reassumed
Its native dignity, and stood
Immortal amid ruin.

Upon the couch the body lay
Wrapt in the depth of slumber…

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