My Photo Journal: Red-winged Blackbird in a Wildflower Meadow

FLOWERS AND WEEDS
by GEORGE COOPER
(originally published March 8, 1887)

HAVE you ever heard what the fairies say,
Little girl, little boy? Oh, hear and heed!
For each smile you wear on your face today
There's a flower grows; for each frown a weed.

So to make this world like a garden bright,
Little girl, little boy, keep frowns away.
Oh, the loving lips that can say tonight,
We have scattered flowers o'er the earth today!

The image above shows a red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) perched on top of a wildflower stalk (it looks like a goldenrod not yet in bloom).

These throwback photos were taken in 2012 on a walk through the DuPont Gordon Richards Park located near the waterfront in Whitby, Ontario. The park is a great place to spot many diffent types of birds and wildflowers, such as the strikingly pretty but incredibly invasive broad-leaved everlasting-pea or Lathyrus latifolius (below).
I hope you are enjoying beautiful weather where you are and wish you many hours of walking along happy trails filled with birdsong every step of your way.

Photos © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Mother and Daughters in the Woods 1

Walk straight ahead
Listen to no one
Trust not in the walls or doorways
For they will mislead
And close behind you
As you walk through
The forest, not knowing
Where you’ve come from
Or where you’re going …
If anywhere at all.
Renée Paule, Just Around The Bend: Más o Menos

Vintage outdoor illustration of a Victorian mother and her daughters on a walk in the great outdoors. From an 1861 issue of Journal des Demoiselles.

You can download theis vintage illustration as a free 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Edwardian Lady on a Walk in the Forest, 1905

This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well.
Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly.
Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature.
Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you.
Take the power to make your life happy.
Susan Polis Schutz

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.
John Muir

From the front cover of Le Moniteur de la Mode dated March 25, 1905. This colour engraving shows an Edwardian lady holding a key on a chain as she heads into (or walks away from) a lush forest.

You can download theis vintage illustration as a free 6" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Garden Poem: The Rabbit and the Carrot by Jenny Wallis

THE RABBIT AND THE CARROT
by JENNY WALLIS

I SING in rhyme a romance sweet,
A tender tale as e'er you'll meet.
'Tis all about a pretty rabbit;
Our little yard did he inhabit.

Beyond the fence Miss Carrot grew;
Her beauty his attention drew.
He daily thought, "Would I were able
To reach that lovely vegetable!"

He tried each space; found all too small;
Beneath there was no room to crawl.
Then off he tore a cabbage leaf,
And on it wrote his tender grief.

Then through the fence he tossed the note,
And to her feet he saw it float;
On which she read, with great surprise,
Words that were very far from wise.

She saw full well that he would win her,
Only to make on her his dinner;
So said, "Kind sir, your note I've seen;
But, pardon me, I'm far from green."

A humourous garden poem originally published March 8, 1887. If you would like to download the illustrated poem as a high-res 5.5" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, you can find it here.

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Garden-Themed Greeting Card: A Happy Thought 2

A HAPPY THOUGHT
The World is so full
of a number of things
I'm sure we should all
be as happy as kings.

A vintage greeting card from the early 20th century (1925). The card is decorated with an illustration of two vibrant daffodils on their leafy stems.

Can be used as a postcard or gift tag but also lovely for spring-inspired journaling, scrapbooking or graphic design projects with a vintage feel. You can download the high-res 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Garden-Themed Greeting Card: Like Flowers Bright on Easter Day

BEST EASTER WISHES
May happiness adorn your way
Like flowers bright on Easter Day

A vintage greeting postcard from 1930 showing a little girl holding a basket of flowers running through a garden path lined with tulips, clasping the paw of the Easter bunny. Can be used as a postcard or gift tag but also lovely for spring-inspired journaling, scrapbooking or graphic design projects with a vintage feel. You can download the high-res 6" x 4" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.

I've also included the back of the original vintage postcard in case you want to use it as a background for a creative project. You can download the high-res 6" x 4" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Botanical Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Spring Bulbs 4 (The Narcissus Pt. 2)

Would you like some warm Spring pie?
Then, take a cup of clear blue sky.
Stir in buzzes from a bee,
Add the laughter of a tree.

A dash of sunlight should suffice
To give the dew a hint of spice.
Mix with berries, plump and sweet.
Top with fluffy clouds, and eat!
Paul Kortepeter, Holly Pond Hill: A Child's Book of Easter

The botanical illustration above shows a group of flowers from the Amaryllidacea family, consisting of (1) variety of Polyanthus Narcissus, (2) also variety of Polyanthus Narcissus, (3) Self-Coloured Rush Daffodil, (4) variety of Sweet-scented Narcissus or Great Jonquil, (5) the Poet's Narcissus, and (6) Narcissus viridiflora.

From the book, here are the original descriptions:
You can download the botanical illustration as a free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Great for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Botanical Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Spring Bulbs 3 (The Narcissus)

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy'd the sun,
To have liv'd light in the spring,
To have lov'd, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanc'd true friends, and beat down baffling foes...?
Matthew Arnold, Empedocles On Etna And Other Poems

The botanical illustration above shows a group of flowers from the Amaryllidacea family, consisting of (1) the Great Spanish White Daffodil, hardy with showy flowers, (2) Mr. Sabine's Daffodil, a very distinct species, (3) the Conspicuous Narcissus, a native of the Pyrenees, (4) the Nonsuch Daffodil, or Butter and Eggs, (5) the White Mountain Daffodil, one of the most beautiful narcissi, (6) Three-anthered Rush Daffodil, a native of Portugal and the south of France, (7) the Jonquil, a garden favourite for its fragrance and profusion of flowers, and (8) Narcissus gracilis, so long a common fixture in British gardens its origin is lost.

From the book, here are the original descriptions:
You can download the botanical illustration as a free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Great for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Botanical Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Spring Bulbs 2 (The Ismene and Others)

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)

lovers go and lovers come
awandering awondering
but any two are perfectly
alone there's nobody else alive

(such a sky and such a sun
i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)

not a tree can count his leaves
each herself by opening
but shining who by thousands mean
only one amazing thing

(secretly adoring shyly
tiny winging darting floating
merry in the blossoming
always joyful selves are singing)

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love
e. e. cummings, Collected Poems

The botanical illustration above shows a trio of flowers from the Amaryllidacea family, consisting of (1) Peruvian Amancaes, a daffodil-like flower first brought to England in 1804; (2) the Common Sea Daffodil, a mainstay in British gardens for centuries; and (3) Hymenocallis, a name signifying "beautiful membrane," an aquatic plant from Mexico.

From the book, here are the original descriptions:
You can download the botanical illustration as a free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Great for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Botanical Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Spring Bulbs 1 (The Snowflake)

In Our Woods, Sometimes a Rare Music
Every spring
I hear the thrush singing
in the glowing woods
he is only passing through.
His voice is deep,
then he lifts it until it seems
to fall from the sky.
I am thrilled.
I am grateful.

Then, by the end of morning,
he's gone, nothing but silence
out of the tree
where he rested for a night.
And this I find acceptable.
Not enough is a poor life.
But too much is, well, too much.
Imagine Verdi or Mahler
every day, all day.
It would exhaust anyone.
Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems

The botanical illustration above shows a cluster of flowers from the Amaryllidacea family, consisting of (1) the Spring Snowflake or St. Agnes'-flower; (2) the Snowflake or Summer Snowflake, whose botanical name is derived from two Greek words signifying "a white violet"; (3) Narrow-leaved Snowflake or Autumn-flowering Snowflake; (4) the Rose-coloured Acis; (5) Cape Crocus: its botanical name is said to derive from the Greek word meaning "to rejoice."

From the book, here are the original descriptions:
You can download the botanical illustration as a free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Great for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Garden-Themed Greeting Card: A Happy Thought

A HAPPY THOUGHT
Happiness and friends most true
Surely they are your just due
May I wish for you today
A gladness that will come and stay

A vintage greeting card from the early 20th century (c1920). The decorative border at the top of the card shows a house surrounded by a lovely garden. Can be used as a postcard or gift tag but also lovely for spring-inspired journaling, scrapbooking or graphic design projects with a vintage feel. You can download the high-res 6" x 4" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Las Glicinas by Pedro Blanes Viale

Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving,
we get stronger and more resilient.
Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Resilience is accepting your new reality,
even if it's less good than the one you had before.
You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost,
or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good.
Elizabeth Edwards

The above public domain painting is titled "Las glicinas" and it was painted in 1923 by Pedro Blanes Viale (1879–1926). Wisteria flowers have at times symbolized rejection and lost love but it is also a longstanding symbol of resilience due to the plant's hardiness and longevity.

You can find the image of the original painting on Wikimedia here and you can download my digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 13" x 14" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. I thought this might be a pretty addition to a garden journal or scrapbooking project but you can also simply print and frame for tabletop or wall art.

Creative Commons Licence
Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Free Garden Clipart for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Vintage Kids in the Garden (Set 1)

Sometimes, the simple things are more fun and meaningful
than all the banquets in the world ...
E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves,
or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play.
Charles Schaefer

Three antique illustrations of children in Edwardian costumes playing in the garden. You can download these vintage drawings as a free 9" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration: The Donkey Ride, 1893

When we are children we seldom think of the future.
This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can.
The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it,
if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring
that we used to gather with our tiny fingers
as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass,
the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows,
the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’ because
they did no harm to the precious crops.
What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything
is known and loved because it is known?
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

An antique illustration showing a Victorian lady walking beside her daughter who is riding on the back of a donkey down a country lane. You can download this vintage drawing as a free 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustrations: Victorian Women and Child on Walks in the Country, 1893

WEATHERS
This is the weather the cuckoo likes,
And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
And nestlings fly;
And the little brown nightingale bills his best,
And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,'
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,
And citizens dream of the south and west,
And so do I.

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh and ply;
And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,
And meadow rivulets overflow,
And drops on gate bars hang in a row,
And rooks in families homeward go,
And so do I.
Thomas Hardy

A grouping of vintage line drawings from 1893 showing four Victorian women and a child dressed for walks in the country. You can download theese antique drawings as a free 8.5" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Botanical Clipart: Three Grandest New Plants, 1896

Three grandest new plants for only 30 cents (as featured in the Mayflower Horticulture magazine from May 1896). From left to right, you have:

THE BRIDAL ROSE: A remarkable plant with leaves resembling a Rose in shape; its flowers are produced during winter, and as as double as a Peony and almost as large. Color pure white, and when a plant one or two feet high shows a score or more of these enormous flowers, which they often do, the sight is a most novel and attractive one. New and little known. Will create a sensation anywhere, for it is one of the most remarkably showy plants in cultivation, and should be in every collection.

NEW DWARF CALLA LITTLE GEM: All that need be said about this sterling novelty is that it is a perfect miniature Calla, growing 8 or 12 inches high and producing perpetually very large snow-white blossoms. It begins to bloom when only a few inches high in a three or four inch pot, and a well-established plant in a large pot is never without flowers, summer or winter, and sometimes shows a dozen at once. The greatest plant novelty of late years and yet the sensation of the day. Our stock is TRUE, and this is a rare opportunity for our readers to get one at little cost.

RUDBECKIA LACINIATA GOLDEN GLOW: Offered this year for the first time. A hardy perennial plant growing eight feet high, branching freely, and bearing by the hundreds, on long, graceful stems, exquisite double blossoms of the brightest golden color and large as Cactus Dahlias. The cut represents a plant in bloom, as photographed. Mr. William Falconer, the best authority on plants in this country, says of it: "When I saw the double-flowering form of Rudbeckia Laciniate in bloom in your grounds at Floral Park, in summer last year, I was amazed, for notwithstanding my long and intimate acquaintance with plants I had never before seen a double-flowered Rudbeckia; and I was delighted with the fullness and gorgeousness of the blossoms and their clear, bright yellow color. You gave me a plant last spring and it was set out in good garden ground. It grew vigorously and threw up strong branching flower stems six feet high, laden with sheaves of golden blossoms as large as fair Chrysanthemums, and all having an elegant, graceful appearance, without any stiffness in habit or blossom. Many eminent florists and amateurs have seen it here, and all admired it. As cut flowers, the blossoms last well. In fine, I unhesitatingly regard it as the most desirable introduction among hardy perennials since we got Clematis Paniculate."

You can download the vintage ad above as a high-res 8" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: January by Frank Dempster Sherman

Here is another winter poem (also entitled "January"), written by poet, architect, genealogist, and mathematician Frank Dempster Sherman. This short work originally appeared in the January 10, 1888 issue of Harper's Young People magazine.

JANUARY
by FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN (1860–1916)

JANUARY, bleak and drear,
First arrival of the year,
Named for Janus ― Janus who
Fable says has faces two ―
Pray is that the reason why
Yours is such a fickle sky?
First you smile, and to us bring
Dreams of the returning spring;
Then, without a sign, you frown,
And the snow-flakes hurry down,
Making all the landscape white,
Just as if it blanched with fright.
You obey no word or law:
Now you freeze, and then you thaw,
Teasing all the brooks that run
With the hope of constant sun,
Chaining all their feet at last
Firm in icy fetters fast.
Month of all months most contrary,
Sweet and bitter January!

I have paired the poem with a vintage wallpaper texture in the preview image above. If you would like to download the high-res 7" x 5" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, you can find it here. You can also find the black and white illustrated poem without the vintage paper texture here.

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Portrait of O. F. Tomara by Valentin Serov

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
Walt Whitman

When what you want is a relationship, and not a person, get a dog.
Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming

The above public domain artwork is titled "Portrait of O. F. Tomara" and it was painted in 1892 by Valentin Serov (1865–1911). You can find the image of the original painting on Wikimedia here and you can download my digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. I thought this might be a pretty addition to a garden journal or scrapbooking project but you can also simply print and frame for tabletop or wall art.

Creative Commons Licence
Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Free Vintage Garden Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Victorian Lady in the Garden 3 & 4 (Set 2)

There are two types of appointments in life!
Appointments you know and appointments you don't know!
It is this second type of appointment that makes life interesting and but also scary.
Sometimes life will arrange a meeting for you; sometimes good, sometimes bad
and sometimes even tragic meeting, but you don't know about it!
Mehmet Murat ildan

Two antique illustrations from 1892 showing a Victorian lady in a public garden. In the first image on the left, the drawing shows a close-up of her with some tall hollyhocks or gladioli in the background. The second illustration on the right depicts her standing on the terrace, looking towards another couple who are strolling arm-in-arm in the garden.

You can download the two illustrations as a single high-res 10" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbookingprojects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustrations for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Victorian Ladies in the Field, 1893

No walk is lovelier than the walk you make inside a field!
Mehmet Murat ildan

A field which feeds you, a river which gives you water
are much holier than all other so-called holy places!
Mehmet Murat ildan

A pair of vintage line drawings from 1893 showing two Victorian ladies in the field. The illustration on the left shows a lady resting her elbows on a fence rail, a pair of field glasses in her right hand, perhaps to observe birds with? The illustration on the right shows a lady leaning back against a fence, a basket of wildflowers in her left hand.

You can download theese antique drawings as a free 8" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Ice Skating Party in the Park, 1896

A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air,
and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth,
now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

A vintage outdoor illustration from 1896 showing a young Victorian lady in a warm winter outfit, her hands in a muff, skating dreamily on an iced-over pond in a park. She seems undisturbed by the merrymaking crowd all around her, as she waltzes lightly across the ice on her skates.

You can download theis antique drawing as a free 6" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: January by Mary Rowles Jarvis (Part 2)

Here is a winter poem, originally published in 1896, that depicts the month of January as a fierce warrior king whose strength is tempered with a kind heart.

"JANUARY"
by Mary Rowles Jarvis
(Part 2)

His rod of iron, outstretched upon the land,
Arrests the stir and music of the rills;
Again the rushing rains of his right hand
Lay bare the lasting hills.

Yet fear we not this warrior, fierce and bold,
The year has turned, the light shall lengthen soon;
The onslaught of his keen, relentless cold
Shall make straight paths for June.

His ways are stern, his meanings are benign;
Behold, unharmed, the snowdrop on his crest,
While the gold splendour of the celandine
Shines starlike on his breast!

You can find PART 1 here.

The painting above is called "Winter Landscape" by Ivan Fedorovich Choultsé (1874 – 1939). You can find the image of the original painting on Wikimedia here and my digitally enhanced version of the painting here.
If you would like to download the poem as it originally appeared in The Girl's Own Paper (as seen above) with its accompanying black and white illustration, you can find the high-res 9" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.