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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Devon Rivers, No.2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry 1814

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry 1814
D09668
Turner Bequest CXXXIII 1
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 178 x 110 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘1’ top right, and ‘294’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXIII 1’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Just over half the page, beginning at the top, is taken up with the following lines of poetry:
Hoarse .. on the rocky margin of the deep
The tide swell falls in constant flow
O’er [‘And’ overwritten] the pale welkin [‘see’ inserted] above gathering darkness creep
While [?’and’ overwritten] the low bark, plows heavy at the prow
Sullen at each pitch the parting waters [‘leave deck’ inserted above]
Insated rise to seize the fated prey [‘but only to be wreck’t’ inserted above]
Ah few escape tho oer the floating waste [‘and strive to gain the deck’ inserted above]
Thrown back their [?imperfectal] splash
Shining on the bows by [?Cinthia] light bedeckt
Reputed not humbled, miriad like they join
Untied portions roll but onward to the shore
Giving a <...> daily lesson to combine
The Man himself so niggard of his store1
These isolated stanzas comprise the only page of original poetry in the present book, although the unfinished lines on folios 75 verso and 76 recto (D09772, D09773) are probably in verse, and there is a transcription from Thomas Moore’s translation of Anacreon on folio 77 recto (D09775). Jack Lindsay has noted that Turner uses as ‘an image drawn from natural process’, his ‘characteristic emblem of crisis and disaster’ – a shipwreck – and sees Turner’s meaning as a ‘belief that men should unite and cease to be “niggard of their [sic] store”.’2

Matthew Imms
July 2014

1
See Wilton and Turner 1990, p.178 (transcription, followed here with slight variations); previously transcribed with variations in Lindsay 1966, p.142.
2
Lindsay 1966, p.142; Gerald Finley, Angel in the Sun: Turner’s Vision of History, Montreal and Kingston [Canada] 1999, p.219 note 33, incorrectly refers to the verse as concerning the Temple of Jupiter Panellinius, owing to a misreading of Lindsay.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-turner-draft-of-poetry-r1147219, accessed 23 April 2024.