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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Perspective lectures c.1809-28 > Perspective Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry c.1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry circa 1809
D07393
Turner Bequest CVIII 25
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 115 x 88 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘25’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CVIII – 25’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with lines of poetry:
Directs, enforces, threats & pray
[deleted word overwritten] Orates and chids and fears delay
Looks with most anxious eyes to fame
And thinks that he can grasp the dame
All ready, ready let her go
Long as the Thames shall flow
May thou be blest my dear Argo
All ready, ready every one replies
O Goddess hear my ardent sighs
Swift as an arrow from a bow
“She goes she goes” then let her go
Long as the Thames shall flow
O Goddess bless the ship Argo
Argo be blest the strain [overwriting an illegible word] resound
Argo be blest the shores rebound
Even Echo murmured Argo long
But dire mischance she broke the thong
Most carefull care had thought so strong
Crash – tackles block fell on the deck1
This is the penultimate passage of a poem (‘Must toiling Man for ever meet disgrace’) which runs over seven pages from folio 20 recto (D07388) up to folio 26 recto (D07394); the previous section is on folio 24 recto (D07392). For a concordance of the extensive passages of poetry in this book, see the sketchbook Introduction.
Discussing Turner’s love of sailing on the Thames, even suggesting that Turner himself might have had a boat called the ‘Argo’, Anthony Bailey quotes the passage from the fifth line to the thirteenth, as ‘[i]ngenuously but touchingly’ expressing this spirit.2
1
See Wilton and Turner 1990, p.164 (transcription, followed here with slight variations); see also Lindsay 1966, pp.68–9 (transcription with minor variations); and Omer 1975, p.698, quoting last three lines following Lindsay’s reading.
2
Bailey 1997, p.95.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
June 2008

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry c.1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2008, 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-inscription-by-turner-draft-of-poetry-r1136589, accessed 26 April 2024.