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 > Greenwich Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1808

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner)’ c.1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Recto:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1808
D06808
Turner Bequest CII 45
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper, 115 x 76 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘45’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CII 45’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For the longer draft poems to which Turner’s verses belong, see Introduction to the sketchbook. Finberg did not transcribe the verses on this leaf, and the reading given here was made by Rosalind Mallord Turner for the 1990 Tate exhibition:
Scarce the dappled morn does rise
But Musick’s sweets ascend the skies
The soaring Lark with fluttering wings
And [does inserted] sweet her early matins sings
High oer her nests her matins sings
And Pleasure
In varying sweets at Evening close
Poor Philomela sings her woes
[silvery moonlights gleam inserted]
By the glittering moon whos[e] beam
In [whose inserted] sparkling radiance gilds the stream
The darken’d heath now gay with green
returning Spring
feathered songsters hail their queen
Impassioned spreads their spotted wings
and Love with Musicks influence sings
The music sweet and
Shun not the roof of my low bower
With low harmonious melody to rest
Nor let one angry passion wound my breast
For another version of this passage, with comment, see folio 39 of the sketchbook (D06796); in each case, the passage on the skylark echoes John Milton’s L’Allegro (41–4).

David Blayney Brown
March 2007

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2007, 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-r1130901, accessed 27 April 2024.