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 Illustrated Template for Cardmaking or Scrapbooking: Butterfly and Honeysuckle Decorative Border on Old Paper

You do not just wake up and become the butterfly. Growth is a process.
— Rupi Kaur
An art nouveau illustrated border that shows a purple butterfly resting on the stalk of a stylized yellow-orange honeysuckle. The blue stalk of the honeysuckle becomes a ribbony scroll pooled at the bottom edge of the template.

I think this would make a pretty background for a greeting card but you can also use it in a journal or as a scrapbooking page. You can download the high-res 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without words or watermark here.


All pre-made templates 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: Moonlit Nigt by Ivan Kramskoi

Moonlit Nigt, 1880
by Ivan Kramskoi (1837 - 1887)
Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others... and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures.
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Free Vintage Outdoor Clipart for Crafts, Collage or Junk Journaling: Victorian Girl Gathering Garden Flowers

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
This sweet illustration of a Victorian girl plucking flowers in an overgrown garden was originally a Victorian trade card. I digitally restored the faded card and added the floral wallpaper and bright coral background. You can download this free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. You can print this out and use as-is for a greeting card or incorporate it into crafts, collage or junk journal projects.


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 sharing or publishing.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Wildflowers by Anna Stainer-Knittel

Wildflowers, 1889
by Anna Stainer-Knittel (1841 - 1915)

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
― Christian D. Larson, Your Forces and How to Use Them

Vintage Art Appreciation: Sunlit Conservatory with Parrots by Olga Wisinger-Florian

Sunlit Conservatory with Parrots
by Olga Wisinger-Florian (1844 - 1926)
Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“But that's how memory works," Bitterblue said quietly. "Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission. And sometimes they came back incomplete and warped.”
― Kristin Cashore, Bitterblue

Free Vintage Clipart for Cardmaking, Collage or Junk Journaling: Girl with Chrysanthemums

It's a good idea always to do something relaxing
prior to making an important decision in your life.
― Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage
Vintage illustration showing a girl sitting at rest on an end table with a watering can and a planter pot of towering chrysanthemums. You can download this free high-res 6.75" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for card making, mixed media collage or junk journal projects 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 sharing or publishing.

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.