Vintage Art Appreciation: Still Life with Tulips by George Clausen

Still Life with Tulips, c1923
by Sir George Clausen, RA (1852 - 1944)
Spring will come and so will happiness. Hold on. Life will get warmer.
― Anita Krizzan

The beautiful spring came, and when nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.
― Harriet Ann Jacobs

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
― Anne Bradstreet

The flower does not choose the soil in which it blooms, but it blossoms nonetheless. It is not the path we are given, but how we walk it that gives us strength and beauty. Embrace hardship and suffering, for they are the forging fires of the soul. Accept your destiny, for it is the canvas upon which you will paint the masterpiece of your life.
― Sambou Lamine Diaby

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 Illustrated Template for Spring-Inspired Graphic Design or Scrapbooking Projects: Art Nouveau Daffodils in Vintage Planter (Paper Whites, Narcissus, Spring Flowers)

Cheerfulness, it would appear,
is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within,
as on the state of things without and around us.
― Charlotte Brontë
An antique illustrated floral border that shows stylized art nouveau white daffodils (narcissus) with red centres in a pot-bellied planter. 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.


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.

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.