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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry 1813

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 278 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry 1813
D09480
Turner Bequest CXXXI 189
Pencil on white wove paper, 157 x 95 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘189’ bottom left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CXXXI – 189’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, is taken up with the following lines of verse:
Oer Thomson tomb the soft Pitys tears distill
Shed in remembrance sad for Pope’s lost fane
To Worth and Verse – retains kind Memory still
Scorning to wear capricious fashions chain
In silence go fair Thames for all is laid
His pastoral harp [‘lute’ inserted above] and reeds unstrung
Lost is all [‘their’ inserted above] harmony in Twickenham glade
While flows thy stream unheeded and unsung
Then place amidst thy upland Shade [‘...’ inserted above]
His Harp Eolian, to Thomsons hon[...]ed fame
From Putneys Heights he Naturs hues surveyd
[?Mellifluous greeting] every air that roves
And caught her beauties as each Season came
From Thames [?lovd] bosom or his verdant plain
Spring, with gentle breath will greet the string
That [blank] balmy kiss greet the Spring
While ever and anon the dulcet air
Shall sigh in sweet air
Resplendent Season check oblivions haste
Whose liberal hands bade Thomson name arise
From Putney heights he Natures charm surveys
and caught each beauty with [?enamourd] Eyes
Summer will shed [‘bring’ inserted above] her many blossom fair
To shield thy [?trembling] string in noon tide ray
Shall shield thy trmblg string in noon tide ray
While ever and anon each dulcet air
Will rapturous thrill or sigh in sweets away1
The poem continues for the whole of folio 277 verso opposite (D09479; Turner Bequest CXXXI 188a), while there is a variant of the penultimate verse on folio 277 recto (D09478; Turner Bequest CXXXI 188).The sketchbook is watermarked ‘1812’ yet these lines relate to the painting Thomson’s Aeolian Harp (Manchester Art Gallery),2 which Turner has exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1809 accompanied by the following lines in the catalogue:
To a gentleman in Putney, requesting him to place one on his grounds.
On Thomson’s tomb the dewy drops distil,
Soft tears of Pity shed for Pope’s lost fame [sic, for ‘fane’, i.e. temple],
To worth and verse adheres sad memory still,
Scorning to wear ensnaring fashion’s chain.
In silence go, fair Thames, for all is laid;
His pastoral reeds untied, and reeds unstrung,
Sunk in their harmony in Twickenham’s glade,
While flows thy stream, unheeded and unsung
Resplendent Seasons! chase oblivion’s shade,
Where liberal hands bid Thomson’s lyre arise;
From Putney’s height he nature’s hues survey’d,
And mark’d each beauty with enraptur’d eyes.
The kindly place amid thy upland groves
Th’ Æolian harp, attun’d to nature’s strains,
Melliferous greeting every air that roves
From Thames’ broad bosom or her verdant plains,
Inspiring Spring! with renovating fire,
Well pleas’d, rebind those reeds Alexis play’d,
And breathing balmy kisses to the Lyre.
Give one soft note to lost Alexis’ shade.
Let Summer shed her many blossoms fair,
To shield the trembling strings in noon-tide ray;
While ever and anon the dulcet air
Shall rapturous thrill, or sigh in sweets away.
Bind not the Poppy in the golden hair,
Autumn! kind giver of the full ear’d sheaf;
Those notes have often echo’d to thy care
Check not their sweetness with thy falling leaf.
Winter! thy sharp cold winds bespeak decay;
Thy snow-fraught robe with let pity ’zone entwine,
That gen’rous care shall memory repay,
Bending with her o’er Thomson’s hallow’d shrine3
There are extensive earlier drafts of these lines in Turner’s so-called ‘Verse Book’, from page 21 onwards and on a loose associated sheet.4 As Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll have noted, the ‘verses printed in the 1809 exhibition catalogue were not necessarily Turner’s definitive version’.5 The 1809 painting is an idealised vision of the River Thames around Richmond, associated with the poet James Thomson (1700–1748), author of The Seasons (1726–30) and An Ode on Æolus’s Harp (1748), who died there. Thomson was an important influence on Turner’s early work, particularly in terms of Thames Valley subjects, and his poetry was often quoted directly in the artist’s Royal Academy catalogue entries.6 The first lines refer to the poet Alexander Pope (1688–1744), the gratuitous 1807 demolition of whose house by the Thames had prompted Turner’s 1808 painting Pope’s Villa at Twickenham (private collection).7

Matthew Imms
April 2014

1
See Wilton and Turner 1990, p.178 (transcription, followed here with slight variations); see also p.134.
2
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.64–5 no.86, pl.96; see also Wilton and Turner 1990, p.134 no.44; and Evelyn Joll, ‘Thomson’s Æolian Harp’ in Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann (eds.), The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.337.
3
As quoted in ibid., p.64.
4
Transcribed in Wilton and Turner 1990, pp.150–3; see also ‘The “Verse Book”’, pp.30–45, and pp.124–5 no.27.
5
Butlin and Joll 1984, p.64.
6
See ‘Pope, Turner and Thomson’ in Wilton and Turner 1990, pp.47–61; and Jan Piggott, ‘Thomson, James (1700–48)’ in Joll, Butlin and Herrmann 2001, pp.336–7.
7
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.55–6 no.72, pl.82 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry 1813 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-a-draft-of-poetry-r1148210, accessed 20 September 2024.