J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Thames sketchbooks c.1804-14 > River Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1807-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner)’ c.1807-8
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Recto:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1807–8
D06063
Turner Bequest XCVI 72
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white laid paper, 92 x 163 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘71’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XCVI 71’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
See note to folio 68 of the sketchbook (D06053) for background to these verses. Rosalind Mallord Turner’s reading published in the 1990 Tate catalogue is adopted here, with significant variations noted in square brackets:
Hark the rude hammer
harsh steel the severd [Turner: sawn] rafter Breaks
Down from the roof the massy give way
Rent the wall, and let in the day
Like some fair that onc[ e] the margin graced
By beauteous ruins at once displaced
In slender frame or the grass[y] mead
... dew around
Recalls each echo desolating sound
No more 1’[1]1 wear the lily on my brow
But sooty weeds now Popes fair fane is low
And as my streams do wash the lowly wall
In sorrowful embrace – deeply fall
Here, Turner continues to dwell on the demolition of Alexander Pope’s villa at Twickenham, in 1807; see also, chiefly, folio 45 (D06015).

David Blayney Brown
October 2006

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1807–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2006, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-verses-inscriptions-by-turner-r1130241, accessed 26 April 2024.