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.

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.