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 29 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry circa 1809
D07400
Turner Bequest CVIII 29
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 ‘29’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CVIII – 29’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with lines of poetry:
Be still my dear Molly be still
Why urge a soft sigh to a will
That is eager that wish to fulfill
So I prithee Dear Molly be still
By thy lips giving motion I wheen
To the centres where love lies between
A passport to bliss is thy will
So I prithee dear Molly be still
By those Hairs which have hid from my sight
Thy sweet eyes when half closed with delight
Then with kisses thy Lips I will fill
Yet I prithee dear Molly be still
By bosom wild throbbing with youth
Their heaving to me speak reproof
<Where love might a kiss imprint> [reinforced by a large ‘X’ to the right]
By the half blushing mark on each hill
Yet I prithee dear Molly be still1
There is offsetting between the first two verses from a heavy ink correction opposite on folio 28 verso (D07399).
The poem concludes on the verso of this leaf (D07401), and the same verses appear, with variations, on both sides of folio 31 (D07403, D07404) – see the entry for folio 31 verso for commentaries. For a concordance of the extensive passages of poetry elsewhere in this book, see the sketchbook Introduction.

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
See Wilton and Turner 1990, pp.164–5 (transcription, followed here with slight variations); third verse quoted in Lindsay 1966, p.104, as ‘variants’, and in Lindsay 1985, p.27, as a ‘variant stanza’ from his main transcription of the folio 31 version.

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-r1136596, accessed 25 April 2024.