The literary work

Poems

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O apathy unfriendly power

ca. 1809

Source: Tate

The link above shows the first passage of the poem «O apathy unfriendly power» which runs over five pages to folio 14 recto (D07379); it continues on folio 9 recto (D07370). Jack Lindsay has seen the whole poem as symptomatic of an «emotional and intellectual crisis» for Turner at this time, with a «sense of despair and disillusion» (Lindsay 1966, p.123).

[D07368]

['O' blotted or deleted] apathy unfriendly [Lindsay: untimely] power

Tho foe to merits brightest hour

Sure no genial ray of morn

Eer glimmerd when thou wast born

The vernal earth the nature hue

Where [?they/cherry] bloom in rankest hue

That clog the soil or sterile clay

Where weeds not blossom eer display

Then cheery drink the sunny ray

But darkest vapour dewy blight

More dreary than the darkest night

Attuned at thy birth arrayed

And nature's self appear dismaid

And dread[?ed] feard that half her race

Would feel thy [blank] and disgrace

What pregnance could help thy birth

To give a [?balmy home] on earth

But dischord as she strayd

[D07368]

In chequer garment sad arrayed

Disliked by all the sons of earth

Disclaimed by all men from their birth

No welcome found in any roof

But chid with words of sharp reproof

In kindness wished to escape

Tho didst sustain our willing rape

Remorse oertook on the way

When midnight darkens oer the day

Remorse of cold [Lindsay: wild] ambition born

With head erect but heart of thorn

The dourfull moment then allaid

Infiderence then lent her aid

Futurity even gave her curse

and Merlin wishd to be a nurse

With [?ramblest] eye to give <[?a]> force

And cherish [long smudge or deletion] in his course

With heaving loins with eye of fire

[D07374]

Thou gave remorse as strong desire

Engraved thee for to controule

To plunder merit richest soul

and from his lips to dash the bowl

That fame delivered to his hands

Rich with the [?worth] of every ['distant' inserted above] lands

Leave him to disapointments thirst

To feel by every one accursed

Or loaded with contempt to strive

and dead to joy and scarce alive

To nature bliss [?'full' inserted above] cheering ray

That lead him on in youthfull play

['What' or 'Which' inserted above] Brought [Wilton and Turner: Wrought] him ['on to' inserted above] the memberd [Lindsay: manhood[s]] hight

With prospects gay & pleasures bright

To leave him to thy baneful sight

That thou hast for thy sad disgrace

Entaild upon his future race

[D07378]

Thanks dearest Vale thou alone

Has broke dire Apathy sad throne

Where thought had [Lindsay: was] drown'd and lost

Like shipwrecked mariners are tost

Lost to all ['joy' inserted above] unknown their way

But hope with them [Lindsay: thine] yet hold her day

Amid the blackness of the unknown coast ['land' inserted above]

Still glimmers still enervates the hands

To brave the dire misfortune sternest day

And through contending evils work their way

Long lost in thy entangling toils

My mind sank deep within the coils

Each pleasure that my former powers

Had given to fishing ['anxious hours' inserted above] grew even sour

Below the Summer Hours they pass

The water gliding clear as Glass

The finny race escapes my line

No float or slender [Lindsay: slim(m)er] thread entwine

[D07379]

Nor urge my hand to catch a fly

So careless so indifferent am I

Whatever passes pass it may

No moment urge the rising lay

The wind it is too high too scant

Tis [Lindsay: Fro] East or North not what I want

The sails they give me so much trouble

And what is pleasure ['sailing' inserted above] but a bubble

When set I wish they were unfurld

And fain would give een all a World

A World of indifference I think

Nature dame [Lindsay: denies] Nature hold each link

In the great chain that is a Zone

Where cause and its effect are one.