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 76 Verso:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1807–8
D06068
Turner Bequest XCVI 74a
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white laid paper, 163 x 92 mm
 
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 followed here, with variations noted in square brackets:
The drop from the dewy rill
by Autumn dews the down[ward] bud distil
caught by the orient light of early morn
by which gay colour ... born
The happy riv[er]
ravished her fair eyes independent of the ill
Envious of his value she fain the guile
Can merit suffer and can all rise
... such like
of Binfield ... bind the pastoral reed
or lament over Troy grown proud the [?courteous] deed
or War sad victims or the sad [?constant] care
of poor Eloisa so tenebrous lair
or Windsor subtle beauties shine in view
his Kew, Rich[mond], Twick[enham], Binfield too
Ah when his future to court fair ... bower
Mourn in the [?Summer] her vac[ant] hours
while Britons loudly in the [?forest] sang
and Halcyon days around him
For Binfield, the boyhood home of Alexander Pope, and the poet’s translation of Homer’s Iliad (his ‘lament over Troy’) see folio 70 verso of the sketchbook (D06056). By ‘poor Eloisa’ Turner refers to the tragic heroine of Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard (1717).

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-r1130246, accessed 26 April 2024.