Whimsical Fairytale Illustration for Collage, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Dahlia Flower Fairy Representing Loveliness, 1867

Thy beauty is as undenied
As the beauty of a star;
And thy heart beats just as equally,
Whate'er thy praises are;
And so long without a parallel
Thy loveliness hath shone,
That, follow'd like the tided moon,
Thou mov'st as calmly on.
― Nathaniel Parker Willis
A fairy tale illustration showing a flower fairy meant to represent the vivacious and exuberant dahlia. The fairy is pictured kicking her heels as she lightheartedly dances with a garland of dahlias that twists and twines around her in a floral S-shape.

Accompanying the illustration is the second stanza of a porm from Nathaniel Parker Willis entitled "To a Belle." You can read this bright and lovely poem in full here. This vintage drawing is originally from a pair of 1867 Victorian advertising cards. You can find the companion card with the modest violet here.

To download the free high-res 5" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, please click here. Can be used in collage, papercrafts, and scrapbooking projects or simply print and frame for wall art.


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.

Whimsical Fairytale Illustration for Collage, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Violet Flower Fairy Representing Modesty, 1867

Sweet flower, that hides in the shade,
Meet emblem of the modest maid,
Whose virtues, like thy perfumes rare,
Makes home delightful everywhere.
― Sir Walter Scott
A fairy tale illustration showing a flower fairy meant to represent the shy and retiring violet. The fairy is pictured clutching the stems of two clusters of violets growing upwardly in an U-shaped arch. Accompanying the illustration is a short porm from Sir Walter Scott. From a pair of 1867 Victorian advertising cards. You can find the companion card with the lovely dahlia here.

To download the free high-res 5" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, please click here. Can be used in collage, papercrafts, and scrapbooking projects or simply print and frame for wall art.


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 for Kids: The Birds' Farewell

A vintage nature poem titled "The Birds' Farewell" written in 1888 by O. Herford about birds flying south for winter and saying goodbye to a young girl whose garden they've been in all summer.

You can download this illustrated poem as a free high-res 8.5" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG (without a watermark) for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


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 Nature Poem for Kids: Mother by M.M.D.

A poem simply entitled "Mother" by M.M.D. (I suspect it is Mary Mapes Dodge), published in October 1877. This is how it goes:
Early one summer morning,
I saw two children pass:
Their footsteps, slow yet lightsome,
Scarce bent the tender grass.

One, lately out of babyhood,
Looked up with eager eyes;
The other watched her wistfully,
Oppressed with smothered sighs.

"See, mother!" cried the little one,
"I gathered them for you?
The sweetest flowers and lilies,
And Mabel has some too."

"Hush, Nelly!" whispered Mabel,
"We have not reached it yet.
Wait till we get there, darling,
It isn't far, my pet."

"Get where?" asked Nelly. "Tell me."
"To the church-yard," Mabel said.
"No! no!" cried little Nelly,
And shook her sunny head.

Still Mabel whispered sadly,
"We must take them to the grave.
Come, darling?" and the childish voice
Tried to be clear and brave.

But Nelly still kept calling
Far up into the blue;
"See, mother, see, how pretty
We gathered them for you."

And when her sister pleaded,
She cried -- and would not go: --
"Angels don't live in church-yards,
My mother don't, I know."

Then Mabel bent and kissed her.
"So be it, dear," she said;
"We'll take them to the arbor
And lay them there instead."

"For mother loved it dearly,
It was the sweetest place!"
And the joy that came to Nelly
Shone up in Mabel's face.

I saw them turn, and follow
A path with blossoms bright,
Until the nodding branches
Concealed them from my sight;

But still like sweetest music
The words came ringing through;
"See, mother, see, how pretty
We gathered them for you."

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 Victorian Sheet Music and Vintage Nature Clipart for Cardmaking, Collage or Scrapbooking: Spring Bird Waltz and Bird with Spring Blossoms

Hello, everyone. Two free graphics this morning:

(1) An illustration from one of my books on wild birds, published in 1901. This bird is called the chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita), its name derived "...from the fancied resemblance of its notes to the words 'chiff chaff,' which are uttered with a quick, clear enunciation; the song is sweet and not unmelodious, and when alarmed the bird has a note of displeasure which sounds something like the word 'whoo-id' or 'whoo-it.'

...considered the earliest of our summer visitors, arriving in this country [England] sometimes in March, and remaining until October; indeed, of all small warblers, it is the first to come and the last to go."

Download the 4" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

(2) A light-hearted dance tune called "Spring Bird Waltz" from the August 1, 1858 issue of Young Ladies' Journal. You can download this antique sheet music as a 4" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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: Each In His Place by Caris Brooke

A Victorian poem from 1893 by Caris Brooke called "Each In His Place." The verses are accompanied by an illustration of a pair of birds up in their nest, snugly anchored to a branch of flowering apple blossoms. Here is how it goes:

Bird, sitting there in the bright sun's ray,
You do nothing but sing all the summer's day,
While I have my lessons to learn.
Now leave your perch on that blossoming spray,
Give me your wings, and in my place stay,
Till I return.

Oh, to fly so far! Oh, to soar so high!
Till I find the gold door in the bright blue sky,
And the way that leads me to the moon;
Then good-bye to lessons, to sums good-bye,
Don't expect me back when I've learned to fly --
At least not soon.

For answer, the bird's song seemed to say,
"Will you do my work while I am away?
Do you know how to build a nest?
Feathers and wool, and dry moss and hay --
Can you fit them in, and make them stay,
If you did your best?

"You must never leave it to romp and play;
You must sit quite still the whole long day,
And not stir a peg.
And before you go, will you kindly say,
If, while you're there, you'll be sure to lay
A little blue egg?"
You can download this poem as a high-res 12" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG (without a watermark) for card making, collage or scrapbooking projects here.


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 Nature Poem A Spring Morning by Anne Beale

From 1880, here is a Victorian poem on aged paper entitled "A Spring Morning" by Anne Beale. Accompanying the poem is a decorative border with an illustration of flower pickers in early spring gathering flowers in the open fields surrounding a big house. There is also a posy of spring flowers embellishing the foreground. The poem goes as follows:

How joyfully the heart doth ring
A merry peal of pleasure
At the nativity of spring,
And the earth's renewing treasure!
How the thoughts leap up, welcoming
The gladsome vernal measure!

The squirrel, in his wild delight,
From branch to branch is springing;
The warbling lark her homeward flight
In ecstasy is winging;
While every mead and grove and height
With joyous song is ringing.

The snowdrop from her winter rest
Is joyously awaking;
The merry primrose bares her breast,
A fill of pleasure taking;
The violet, from her mossy nest,
In loveliness is breaking.

Wandering 'neath the cloudless sky,
The children shout for gladness,
And deem the sun's enkindling eye
An antidote for sadness;
Then would not murmuring needlessly
Be even worse than madness?
You can download a high-res JPEG of the original poem (without a watermark) for card making, collage or scrapbooking projects here.


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 Nature Poem An April Song by an Unknown Author

From 1881, here is a Victorian poem called "An April Song" by an unknown author. Accompanying the poem is a decorative border with an illustration of a blossoming tree and various spring flowers plus a scattering of assorted planting paraphernalia in the garden.

The poem goes as follows:

Earth's heart with gladness glows again,
Gone is all wintry gloom;
The sun peeps through my lattice-pane,
And fills my little room
With life divine, and bids me fly
My books and pens awhile,
To wander forth beneath a sky
That wears an April smile.

Old loves at every step I meet,
Sweet fragrance fills the air;
Such songs of praise that birds repeat,
As move my soul to prayer.
E'en primrose clusters on the banks,
And violets nesting low,
To Him uplift a look of thanks,
From whom all blessings flow.

The hyacinth hangs her languid head,
And waits the gentle May,
Now drawing near with noiseless tread,
To kiss her tears away;
The fields with daisies are besprent,
As white as flakes of snow;
And from the whispering woods are sent
Joy-murmurs, soft and low.

You can download a free 8.5" (w) x 12" (h) @ 300 ppi JPEG of the poem (without a watermark) for collage, graphic design, junk journal or scrapbooking projects here.


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 Nature Poem for Kids: Cheery Robin by B. Lander

Image source: Wikimedia
The following is a public domain Victorian children's poem written by B. Lander and originally published in 1880. The poem is called "Cheery Robin" and this is how it goes:

Robin in the April time
Blithely sings of summer prime,
Every mellow note outwelling
Sweetly telling of his glee;
How his merry carol rings!
As he sings,
In the budding April time, -- Cheerily!

Robin in the summer prime,
What cares he for autumn rime!
Present care and present pleasure
Fill the measure of each day;
And his merry carol rings,
While he sings,
In the golden summer prime, -- Cheerily!

Robins in the autumn rime
Singeth of a sunny clime,
Where the bowers glow with flowers,
Where the hours brim with glee.
Still his merry carol rings!
Still he sings,
In the chilly autumn rime, -- Cheerily!

Robin to the aged Year
Sings a parting note of cheer;
Happy heart of sunshine, Robin,
Ever throbbing merrily.
Sweet contentment Robin brings,
When he sings,
With a cadence loud and clear, -- Cheerily!

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 Winter Clipart and Nature Poem for Cardmaking, Crafts or Junk Journaling: Snow Crystals, 1881 and Snowflakes, 1879

Above is a black and white illustration from an 1881 magazine thats a variety of snow crystal shapes. I also found a sweet winter poem called "Snowflakes" written by Mary Mapes Dodge (1831 - 1905) and first published in 1879 that I thought would go well with the illustration. Here is how the poem goes:

Whenever a snowflake leaves the sky
It turns and turns to say “good-bye;”
“Good-bye, dear cloud, so cool and gray!”
Then lightly travels on its way.
And when a snowflake finds a tree,
“Good-day,” it says — “Good-day to thee!
Thou art so bare and lonely, dear,
I’ll rest and call my comrades here.”
But when a snowflake brave and meek,
Lights on a rosy maiden’s cheek,
It starts— “How warm and soft the day!
‘Tis Summer!”— and it melts away.
[Source]
You can download the free illustration as a high-resolution 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Perfect for a holiday greeting card or incorporate into crafts, scrapbooking or junk journal projects.

By the way, here is an audio of soprano Gwen Catley singing "Snowflakes," which had been set to music by composer Liza Lehmann (1862 - 1918), and published in 1914. [Source]



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 for Kids: The North Wind Doth Blow (with Sheet Music)

The North wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor Robin
do then, poor thing?
He'll sit in a barn,
And to keep himself warm
Will hide his head under his wing,
poor thing!

Antique nature poem found in a children's magazine from c1880 (the origin of the poem itself is much older and is thought to date back to the 16th century). You can download this illustrated poem and sheet music as an 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here for use in cardmaking and nature journal projects or simply print and frame for wall art.

Here is a really adorable video I found of the poem on Youtube:



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 Nature Poem: A Thought of the Rose

Below is an illustrated Victorian garden poem on the lovely rose, originally published in 1893, and titled (of course!) "A Thought of the Rose."

How much of memory dwells amidst thy bloom,
Rose! ever wearing beauty for thy dower!
The bridal-day ― the festival ― the tomb ―
Thou hast thy part in each, thou stateliest flower!

Therefore with thy soft breath come floating by
A thousand images of love and grief,
Dreams, fill'd with tokens of mortality,
Deep thoughts of all things beautiful and brief.

Not such thy spells o'er those that hail'd thee first,
In the clear light of Eden's golden day!
There thy rich leaves to crimson glory burst,
Link'd with no dim remembrance of decay.

Rose! for the banquet gather'd, and the bier;
Rose colour'd now by human hope and pain;
Surely where death is not -- not change, nor fear,
Yet may we meet thee, Joy's own flower again!
You can download this poem as an 8.5" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here for use in cardmaking and nature journal projects or simply print and frame for wall art.


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 Nature Poem Fairy Snow

Here is a sweet nature poem that was originally published in 1911, charmingly illustrated in a distincetive art nouveu style by Rachael Robinson.

Here is how the poem goes:
We toss the thistle-down away
And wait to see it fly;
'Twill make a rather snowy day
For fairies in the sky!

Then after all the summer rain
When wintry winds shall blow,
They'll send it down to us again,
In little flakes of snow!

You can download this illustrated poem as a 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here for use in greeting cards, nature journals or simply print and frame for wall art.


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 Nature Poem: Back to the Farm (Part 4 of 4)

You can download this illustration by N.C. Wyeth for free as a 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

BACK TO THE FARM
Part 4 (of 4)
by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

Out in the dews with the spider at his shuttle --
In that half-dreaming hour that awakes the whippoorwill
And sets the nighthawk darting sinister and subtle,
F'er the full moon complacent loiters o'er the hill.

Back to the farm!
With the friendly brute for neighbor,
Where youth and Nature beckon, the tryst who would not keep?
Back to the luxury of rest that follows labor,
Back to the primal joys of hunger and of sleep!

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 Nature Poem: Back to the Farm (Part 3 of 4)

You can download this illustration by N.C. Wyeth for free as a 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

BACK TO THE FARM
Part 3 (of 4)
by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

Off to the wood lot where brier bloom runs riot
And wary forest creature no hunter's snare deceives,
Virgin growth beguiling the solemn-hearted quiet
With songs of winter fires a-ripple through the leaves.

Up to the bars in the twilight's soft reaction --
Winding through the ferny lane to barns of stooping eaves
Welcoming at nightfall to simple satisfaction,
When the reeling swallow her dusky pattern weaves.

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 Nature Poem: Back to the Farm (Part 2 of 4)

You can download this illustration by N.C. Wyeth for free as a 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

BACK TO THE FARM
Part 2 (of 4)
by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

Down in the hayfield where scythes glint through the clover;
Lusty blood a-throbbing in the splendor of the noon --
Lying 'neath the haycocks as castling clouds pass over,
Hearing insect lovers a-piping out of tune.

Caught in the spell of old kitchen-garden savors --
With luscious lines retreating to hills of musky corn,
And clambering grapes that spill their clustering flavors --
Each in fragrant season filling Plenty's golden horn.

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 Nature Poem: Back to the Farm (Part 1 of 4)

You can download this illustration by N.C. Wyeth for free as a 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

BACK TO THE FARM
Part 1 (of 4)
by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

Back to the farm!
Where the bob-white still is calling
As in remembered drawings when youth and I were boys,
Driving the cattle where the meadow brook is brawling
Her immemorial wandering fears and joys!

Home to the farm for the deep green calms of summer,
Life of the open furrow, life of the waving grain --
Leaving the painted world of masquerade and mummer
Just for the sense of earth and ripening again.

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 Nature Poem: Song in the Key of Autumn by Scudder Middleton

Image © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

SONG IN THE KEY OF AUTUMN
by Scudder Middleton
(originally published in the November 1919 issue of Century magazine)

We are walking with the month
To a quiet place.
See, only here and there the gentians stand!
To-night the homing loon
Will fly across the moon,
Over the tired land.

We were the idlers and the sowers,
The watchers in the sun,
The harvesters who laid away the grain.
Now there's a sign in every vacant tree,
Now there's a hint in every stubble field,
Something we must not forget
When the blossoms fly again.

Give me your hand!
There were too many promises in June.
Human-tinted buds of spring
Told only half the truth.
The withering leaf beneath our feet,
That wrinkled apple overhead,
Say more than vital boughs have said
When we went walking
In this growing place.
There is something in this hour
More honest than a flower
Or laughter from a sunny face.

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 Nature Poem: In Daisy Days by Mary Elizabeth Blake

The Flower Girl, 1897
byJules-Cyrille Cavé (1859 - 1949)
Below is a poem called "In Daisy Days," written by Mary Elizabeth Blake. Mrs. Blake's admirers included Theodore Roosevelt and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the latter of whom wrote of her: "You are one of the birds that must sing." "In Daisy Days" was published June 1902 and goes like this:

Suns that sparkle and birds that sing,
Brooks in the meadow rippling over,
Butterflies rising on golden wing
Through the blue air and deep-red clover,
Flower-bells full of sweet anthems rung
Out on the wind in lone woodland ways --
Oh, but the world is fair and young
In daisy days!

Lusty trumpets of burly bees
Full and clear on the sweet air blowing;
Gnarled boughs of the orchard trees
Hidden from sight by young leaves growing.
Scars of the winter hide their pain
Under the grasses' tangled maze,
And youth of the world springs fresh again
In daisy days.

Down in the valley and up the slope
Starry blooms in the wind are bending;
Glad eyes shine like the light of hope,
Comfort and cheer to the dark earth lending.
Buoyant with life they spring and soar
Like the lark that carols his matin lays,
Climbing to gates of heaven once more
In daisy days.

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 Nature Poem: In Garden-land by Augusta Hancock

A Victorian poem in celebration of nature, written by Augusta Hancock in 1893. Here is the poem in full:

IN GARDEN-LAND
In the garden-land of Nature
The smiling daisies blow,
With hearts kissed gold by sunshine,
And lips like winter snow;
The little winds play o'er them,
And dewdrops from above
Rest on them with the nightfall,
Like sparkling crowns of love.

On the misty slopes of sky-land
When sunlight ebbs away,
The daisy-stars of Heaven
Unfold as fades the day;
On sapphire banks they open,
Each set in radiant light --
The flowerets of the angels
That watch the livelong night.

In the world of busy workers,
'Mid turmoil and 'mid strife,
Are seen sweet girlish faces,
Like flowers that brighten life,
Their songs ring through our sadness,
Their laughter fills the air --
God's daisies fresh and heaven-sent
To blossom everywhere.


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.