Field & Garden: Nature poems

Showing posts with label Nature poems. Show all posts

Free Vintage Nature Poem Fairy Snow

Labels: Children's poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems, Summer poems, Winter poems

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)

Labels: Fall (autumn) poems, Harvest poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems

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!

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

Labels: Fall (autumn) poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems, Summer poems

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.

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

Labels: Fall (autumn) poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems, Summer poems

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.

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

Labels: Music & Poetry, Nature poems, Summer poems

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.

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

Labels: Fall (autumn) poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems

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.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: In Daisy Days by Mary Elizabeth Blake

Labels: Art appreciation, Figurative art, Music & Poetry, Nature poems, Portrait paintings, Vintage art

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.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: In Garden-land by Augusta Hancock

Labels: Garden poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems

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.

Free Vintage Nature Poem for Kids: The Song of the Bee by Nancy Nelson Pendleton

Labels: Children's poems, Garden poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems

Image © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

THE SONG OF THE BEE
by Nancy Nelson Pendleton
(originally published September 1897)

Buzz, buzz, buzz
This is the song of the bee.
His legs are of yellow,
A jolly good fellow,
And yet a good worker is he.

In days that are sunny,
He's getting his honey;
In days that are cloudy,
He's hoarding his wax;
On pinks and on lilacs,
And gay daffodillies,
And columbine blossoms
He levies a tax.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!
The sweet-smelling clover
He humming hangs over;
The scent of the roses
Makes fragrant his wings;
He never gets lazy,
From thistle and daisy
And weeds of the meadow
Some treasure he brings.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!
From morning's first gray light
Till fading of day light,
He's singing and toiling
The summer day through,
Oh! we may get weary,
And think work is dreary;
'Tis harder by far
To have nothing to do.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: The Dial of a Summer's Day by C.E.C. Weigall

Labels: Love poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems, Summer poems

A Victorian poem entitled "The Dial of a Summer's Day" by C.E.C. Weigall, originally published c1890. Accompanying the poem is an illustration of a small farmhouse surrounded by a lush meadow at the height of summer. The poem goes as follows:

Just one o'clock:
In the meadow of hay,
The reapers are reaping and singing today,
Ant the swish of the scythe rings a glad roundelay.

Just two o'clock:
Hush! you babbling rill,
The world lies a-drowsing, the reapers are still,
And a shimmer of heat dances over the hill.

Just three o'clock:
Said the hare by the stile,
"The reapers are crafty -- the reapers of Lisle."
So he crept 'neath a dock-leaf and pondered awhile.

Just four o'clock:
In the wild rose and clover
The honey bee laughs, and dips over and over,
And "peewit, 'tis hot!" pipes the petulant plover.

Just five o'clock:
Twixt the moor and the sky,
Where the far distant purple of heather doth lie,
The arrowing curlews still hover and cry.

Just six o'clock:
From the ivied church tower,
The breeze carries upward in the chime of the hour,
Which the great bell is tolling with ponderous power.

Just seven o'clock:
Drones the humble bee red,
As he watches a cockchafer whizz over head,
And fussily follows a neighbour to bed.

Just eight o'clock:
As I watch and I wait
In the gathering twilight, beside the farm gate,
I know that the flowers say, "Mabel is late!"

Just nine o'clock:
As we wander and pass,
Hand in hand, lip to lip, over dew-spangled grass,
We can hear the white owl shrieking, "Lovers, alas!"

Just ten o'clock:
As we part 'neath a star,
The angels are smiling through heaven's bright bar,
And the new moon is rocking the clouds in her car.

Just eleven o'clock:
In her window the light
Flares redly and instant, then fades out of sight,
And I turn with a sigh, and walk into the night.

Just twelve o'clock:
On the motionless deep
The lights of the fishing-boats tremulous peep,
And the angels have hushed the world's sorrows to sleep.

You can download the poem along with the black and white illustration as a high-res 12" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Lovely as a framed print but can also be used in a greeting card, junk journal or scrapbooking project.

Free Vintage Nature Poem for Kids: Apple-Tree Hall by Elizabeth Roberts Macdonald

Labels: Children's poems, Music & Poetry, Nature fantasy, Nature poems

Here is an antique children's poem of nature and imagination by Elizabeth Roberts Macdonald, published in the October 1910 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine.

APPLE-TREE HALL

There's an old spreading apple-tree, gnarly and wide,
In an orchard (I can't tell you where),
Where Dora and I can curl up side by side,
And nobody know we are there.
We go there on Saturdays, -- that's if it's fine,
And Mother is willing, and all, --
Take our dolls and our dishes, and there we keep house
Till tea-time, in Apple-Tree Hall.

There's the loveliest carpet, all wood-brown and gray,
And the walls have a pattern of green;
The windows are curtained the coziest way
That ever was thought of or seen;
And as for the ceiling, it's blue as the sky;
And we've crimson globe-lamps in the fall --
In the spring we have pink, and in summer use none
(Such a saving!), in Apple-Tree Hall.

All the neighbors are charming, -- so musical, too!
Madam Thrush has a voice like a bird,
And the love-songs she sings (in Italian, I think)
Are the sweetest we ever have heard.
Then the dryads and wood-nymphs dwell close to us, too,
Though they are too bashful to call.
The society really is quite the best
When we're living at Apple-Tree Hall.

Oh, I wish I could tell you one half of our plays,
And the fine things we plan when we're there,
Of the books that we'll write and the deeds that we'll do
In the years that wait, shining and fair.
My mother says, sometimes, -- and so does Aunt Kate, --
That these are the best days of all;
But we think it's just the beginning of fun,
Keeping house here in Apple-Tree Hall!

Free Vintage Nature Poem: Who Taught the Birds? by Caris Brooke

Labels: Love poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems

British Birds: Cock Skylark; Hen Beam Bird; Hen White Wagtail; Hen Blackcap; Cock Nightingale; Hen Nightingale; Cock and hen house Martin; Cock Marsh Titmouse; Hen Titlark and a Hen Grass Hopper, painted 1736
by Charles Collins (1680 - 1744)

*** --- *** --- ***

WHO TAUGHT THE BIRDS?
by Caris Brooke
(originally published June 17, 1893)

To and fro, to and fro,
From the chestnut tree to the meadow grass,
Day after day I watched her pass;
Where did the little birdie go?
With drooping wing and ruffled breast,
Hopping along with a broken leg,
She came to my window, as if to beg
Crumbs for the little ones up in her nest.

Far and high, touching the sky
Where the chestnut flowers are pink and white,
Every morning and every night
She carried worms, or grubs, or fly,
To a nest that was woven of moss and feather,
Where the little bird-babies chirrup and cheep,
And over the nest-edge try to peep --
Five little yellow bills open together.

Slowly, in pain, in sunshine and rain,
The mother-bird went on her weary way;
But the little ones waited that summer day,
And chirruped and called for her -- all in vain.
I opened my window, and found her lain
Just where the sunlight touches the sill --
Not waiting for crumbs, but cold and still --
Never to fly to her nest again.

Little mouths to be fed, and their mother dead --
Must the poor wee birdies with hunger die?
Watching, I saw another bird fly
Straight to the nest with a crumb of bread.
To and fro, without staying to rest,
She carried them morsels of dainty food,
Till she satisfied all the hungry brood;
Then gathered them warmly under her breast.

* * * * *

Now tell me, Who had whispered to the little birdies's heart
To fly to those forsaken ones, and take their mother's part?

Free Vintage Nature Poem: The Birds by Pierre-Jean de Béranger

Labels: Art appreciation, Birds in art, Gardens and nature in art, Music & Poetry, Nature poems, Portrait paintings, Spring poems, Vintage art

The Bird Charmer, 1873
by Léon Bazille Perrault (1832 – 1908)

Happy who for a season may
Absent themselves on buoyant wing!
The birds that Winter drives away
Will surely come again with Spring.
They of our ills will mindful be,
And when at length the storm has passed,
They will return to this same tree
Which has so often felt the blast.
Then to our fertile vale will they
A more auspicious presage bring!
The birds that Winter drives away
Will surely come again with Spring.
― Pierre-Jean de Béranger, The Birds (translated from the French by Percy Reeve)

Free Vintage Nature Poem: Primrose Sweet by Samuel S. McCurry

Labels: Garden poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems, Spring poems

Photo credit: Ella8 from Pixabay
Here is a public domain Victorian poem by Samuel S. McCurry entitled "Primrose Sweet," originally published in March of 1893. This is how it goes:

O Primrose Sweet! Of sun and shower
The offspring fair. Of glade and bower
We watch thy dainty leaves unfold
In fairy clouds of clustered gold,
When wintry skies no longer lower.

The earnest, thou, of Spring's bright dower;
For thee we longed the dreary hour,
When wailed the winds across the world,
O Primrose Sweet!

We hail thy coming, gentle flower!
And, yielding to the majestic power,
Love, Love, that erst was doubting, cold,
Shall pipe to thee a paean bold,
And Faith revived shall cease to cower,
Primrose Sweet!

Free Vintage Nature Poem: My Love by M. Hedderwick Browne

Labels: Garden poems, Love poems, Music & Poetry, Nature poems

A Victorian poem titled "My Love," written by M. (Marie) Hedderwick Browne, and published in 1893. Here, the author compares the hardy personality of love to various flowers and finds them wanting until she comes to the resilient and low-maintenance heather which she holds in high esteem. Here is how the poem goes:

I
My love is not like the rose,
Nor the languid lady-lily,
Nor the pansy, pensive-faced,
Nor the drooping "daffy-dilly."

II
She's not like the pale snowdrop,
Fears of frailty in us waking,
Nor the shrinking violet,
For the shade the sun forsaking.

III
I can only liken her
To the brave and bonnie heather --
Hardy, wholesome, and not made
For a hothouse or fine weather.

My Photo Journal: Renewal

Labels: Botanical photography, Flower and plant photography, Music & Poetry, My photo journal, Nature poems, Spring poems

Image © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

RENEWAL
by Dora Read Goodale
(first published 1887)

There's magic in the air today,
There's promise in the sun;
The very brooks begin to play,
And frolic as they run.

The hive is all astir with bees,
The slender willows shine;
The sap is mounting in the trees,
And swelling in the vine.

The swallow comes from far away
To seek her summer nest,
Whose narrow hanging walls of clay
Await the welcome guest.

At ease upon the cottage floor,
His head between his feet,
The shaggy setter guards the door,
Or dozes in the heat;

And there beneath the fitful ray
Of many a yellow beam,
His aged master, bent and gray,
Is laughing through his dream.

O, pleasure pricks in every vein,
And grief is turned to joy,
For Earth herself is young again,
And Time is but a boy!

Public domain poem is fom 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 sharing or publishing.

My Photo Journal: Aster and Bee

Labels: Bug photography, Children's poems, Garden poems, Music & Poetry, My photo journal, Nature photography, Nature poems

Aster and Bee
© FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.
Do you miss the balmy days of summer? As I sit in a chilly room on a darkening day in the midst of a gloomy Canadian winter, I long for the hours I spent tramping about in the fields and meadows with my family when the sun shone hot and insects droned incessantly.

Among the daisies all astir
Observe the belted rover,
The merry little mariner
That sails the seas of clover.

Whene'er a shower falls, pellmell
Upon the seas of clover
He flies into some flower-bell,
And waits until it's over.
("The Bee" by R.K.M., published in 1888)
What do you miss the most from when the weather was sultry? As the snow clings to these January days, let's shake our boots and march through our memories of clover seas and mariner bees and dream of the days when we will arrive at the shores of summer once more.

My Photo Journal: Winter Tree

Labels: Botanical photography, Children's poems, Flower and plant photography, Music & Poetry, My photo journal, Nature poems, Tree photography, Winter poems

WINTER TREE
by M.K. Powell

Alone, ignored,
The leaves, they went away in fall;
The tree is frozen,
Yet standing tall.

The winter tree
It's sleeping now;
But in spring, it will stir once more,
Wakened by the sun's warming glow.

Right now through the harsh winds of winter,
When animals retreat to their nests,
The tree stands lonely,
While the critters rest.

The scraggly branches
Reach up to the sky.
Remembering the summer days,
When life was peachy as pie.

Winter tree is dark against the sky,
But it stands tall and doesn't bend.
For in the spring,
the weather all will mend.

Poem and photo © 2018 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.