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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Hastings Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses (Inscription by Turner) circa 1809-11

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscription by Turner)’ circa 1809-11
Folio 40 Recto:
Verses (Inscription by Turner) circa 1809–11
D07654
Turner Bequest CXI 40
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 88 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘39 (crossed out) 40’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXI 40’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The verse written here seems to begin a passage continued on folio 39 verso and concluded on folio 38 verso of the sketchbook (D07653, D07651). A full transcription is given here, based on Rosalind Mallord Turner’s reading for the 1990 Tate exhibition:
Oh thou I thou mark only
My longing eye
Bent on earth rapturous delight
Art thou too fled
Say did those souls beneath the roses win
Or hostile heads by midnight gloom
More dreadfull made
Or by the thrusting cliff that echoing
Down the winds laid
Prone in dust and all the conflict done
And only lift a frail monument [stone inserted]
To mark thy once domain
Where pleasure seemed to reign
Gently lifted over the azure main
That humbled at the feet rest
But when even and the dusk
[Continued on folio 39 verso, D07653] Sent forth that power in dread array
Thy loving favours tumble to thy ground
And all mingled combine threw around
Gone near to the once loved roof
I felt the power of loving with reproof
A sigh to be thy inmate by just fate
Him by what we’re [Continued on folio 38 verso, D07651] taught to call
And that power so condemned rest
Whatever it is mistaken for the best
Butlin and Joll associate these lines with Apollo and Python (Tate N00488)1 but this seems unlikely. (For poetry connected with the picture in this sketchbook see Introduction and notes to folio 17, D07617). The tone here is more personal and reflective, tinged with guilt or remorse.
1
Butlin and Joll 1984, p.82 no.115 (pl.119).
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
May 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscription by Turner) c.1809–11’, catalogue entry, May 2011, 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/verses-inscription-by-turner-r1131141, accessed 25 April 2024.