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 Verso:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1808
D06809
Turner Bequest CII 45a
Inscribed by Turner in pencil and ink (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper, 76 x 115 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inscribed with the sketchbook inverted. For the longer draft poem 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:
Restless with care with hope closed her eyes
The Phantom shining calm o[e’]r her pillow
With care and love she heard her l[over’s] cries
As he clings on the rock savd from billows
Kind sleep [repeated in hope closed her eye inserted in pencil]
Her prayer she deep sighed in hope
That kind heaven would drive from her pillow
[The phantom dim sprite as he fled often sighd inserted in pencil]
The one Phantom as ruling [?another’s] sigh
They Lover he is save from the Billow
Another version of the last four lines is on folio 46 (D06810).

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-r1130902, accessed 24 April 2024.