Ethel Allen Murphy's The Angel of Thought and Other Poems (1909) is a slim collection of ekphrastic verse, each poem keyed to a specific Old Master painting. The title poem responds to a Fra Angelico angel, while the majority of the pieces engage with Botticelli's Madonnas and angels. Murphy's prefatory note credits the Indiana University Art Department for lending the pictures that 'suggested the verses,' framing the book as a direct verbal response to visual art.

The catalog subjects—'Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint -- Art' and 'Angels in art'—accurately reflect the content, but the poems do more than describe. They often adopt a devotional or prayerful tone, as in 'A Prayer for the Followers of Ideal Beauty,' which addresses a Botticelli angel sketch. Murphy's voice is earnest and elevated, favoring abstract nouns ('passion,' 'mystic oneness') and a formal sonnet structure for several pieces.

Ekphrasis as Devotion

Murphy's poems do not simply describe the paintings; they inhabit a devotional register. In 'The Angel of Thought,' the speaker addresses the angel directly, imagining its divine purpose: 'God winged thee so, / And crowned thine head with passion fine as flame.' The angel becomes a conduit for 'the mute, world-shaking music of the mind,' a figure that transcends time and space. This is not a neutral description of Fra Angelico's Te Deum Laudamus angel but a theological meditation on thought itself.

The two sonnets on Botticelli's Annunciation (titled 'Annunciation—Sonnet I' and 'II') similarly adopt a reverent tone. The first sonnet opens with 'Kneeling in prayer,' and the second continues the scene of Gabriel's message. Murphy does not mention the painting's composition or color; instead, she amplifies the spiritual drama. The poems function as verbal icons, meant to be read as acts of contemplation rather than art criticism.

Botticelli's Madonnas in Triplicate

Three consecutive poems address Botticelli Madonnas: 'The Wondering Angels' (from the Madonna of the Magnificat), 'The Mournful Mother' (from the Madonna of the Pomegranate), and 'The Loving Christ' (from the Madonna of the Rose Garden). Each poem isolates a single figure or emotional quality. 'The Wondering Angels' focuses on the angels' 'wondering eyes' and their role as witnesses. 'The Mournful Mother' dwells on Mary's foreknowledge of the Passion, a theme hinted at by the pomegranate in the painting. 'The Loving Christ' shifts to the infant Jesus, emphasizing his 'loving' nature.

This tripartite structure—angels, mother, child—mirrors the devotional triptych tradition. Murphy does not describe the paintings' visual details (the pomegranate, the rose garden, the angels' crowns) but instead extracts a single emotional or theological note from each. The poems are less about what the paintings look like than about what they mean in a Christian narrative.

The Angel as Recurring Motif

Angels appear in nearly every poem, whether as the primary subject (the Fra Angelico angel, the 'Angel of the Jasmine Wreath') or as secondary figures (the wondering angels, the angel in Botticelli's pencil sketch). Murphy consistently attributes to them a mediating role between the divine and the human. In 'The Angel of the Jasmine Wreath,' the angel is 'crowned with a jasmine wreath,' a detail from Botticelli's Borghese Gallery painting. The poem imagines the angel as a 'messenger of peace' and 'love's own herald.'

The final poem, 'A Prayer for the Followers of Ideal Beauty,' addresses a Botticelli pencil sketch of an angel. Here the angel becomes a symbol of artistic aspiration: 'O angel of the perfect line, / Teach us to see the beauty that is thine.' Murphy explicitly links the angel to the pursuit of 'ideal beauty,' a Neoplatonic concept that aligns with Botticelli's own artistic milieu. The angel is not just a religious figure but an aesthetic one.

Murphy's poems are best read alongside reproductions of the paintings that inspired them—the 1908 edition included illustrations, and modern images are available online. The verses are short, often sonnets, and reward slow reading. Pay attention to how Murphy selects a single detail or emotion from each painting and amplifies it into a meditation. The collection is a period piece of early 20th-century devotional ekphrasis, earnest and unironic, offering a window into how one poet translated Renaissance visual art into verse.