Upon the couch the body lay
Wrapped in the depth of slumber:  140
Its features were fixed and meaningless,
Yet animal life was there,
And every organ yet performed
Its natural functions:  ’twas a sight
Of wonder to behold the body and soul. 145
The self-same lineaments, the same
Marks of identity were there: 
Yet, oh, how different!  One aspires to Heaven,
Pants for its sempiternal heritage,
And ever-changing, ever-rising still, 150
Wantons in endless being. 
The other, for a time the unwilling sport
Of circumstance and passion, struggles on;
Fleets through its sad duration rapidly: 
Then, like an useless and worn-out machine, 155
Rots, perishes, and passes.

FAIRY: 
’Spirit! who hast dived so deep;
Spirit! who hast soared so high;
Thou the fearless, thou the mild,
Accept the boon thy worth hath earned, 160
Ascend the car with me.’

SPIRIT: 
’Do I dream?  Is this new feeling
But a visioned ghost of slumber? 
If indeed I am a soul,
A free, a disembodied soul, 165
Speak again to me.’

FAIRY: 
’I am the Fairy MAB:  to me ’tis given
The wonders of the human world to keep: 
The secrets of the immeasurable past,
In the unfailing consciences of men, 170
Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find: 
The future, from the causes which arise
In each event, I gather:  not the sting
Which retributive memory implants
In the hard bosom of the selfish man; 175
Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb
Which virtue’s votary feels when he sums up
The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day,
Are unforeseen, unregistered by me: 
And it is yet permitted me, to rend 180
The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit,
Clothed in its changeless purity, may know
How soonest to accomplish the great end
For which it hath its being, and may taste
That peace, which in the end all life will share. 185
This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul,
Ascend the car with me!’

The chains of earth’s immurement
Fell from Ianthe’s spirit;
They shrank and brake like bandages of straw 190
Beneath a wakened giant’s strength. 
She knew her glorious change,
And felt in apprehension uncontrolled
New raptures opening round: 
Each day-dream of her mortal life, 195
Each frenzied vision of the slumbers
That closed each well-spent day,
Seemed now to meet reality.

The Fairy and the Soul proceeded;
The silver clouds disparted; 200
And as the car of magic they ascended,
Again the speechless music swelled,
Again the coursers of the air
Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen
Shaking the beamy reins 205
Bade them pursue their way.