19th Century Public Domain Poetry: Varieties in Verse from 1867

These two verses were originally published in either the May or June 1867 issue of Godey's (the book is falling apart so the pages are jumbled together). The verses were translated into English from Italian and French, respectively. I am not quite sure if the translations were accurate as the poems seem to be missing something?

The Italian verse reads:
With joyful notes birds greet the spring,
And fairest flowers their odors fling;
But wicked love pretends to sigh
'Cause the fair things so soon must die.
Poor child! cries spring, thy happiest hours―
Will they last longer than my flowers?
The French verse is called "With a Lock of Gray Hair" and goes like this:

Despise it not because 'tis gray,
Nor cast the gift with scorn away.
It tells of love as warm and true
As ever youthful bosom knew;
But, purer far than love of youth,
It needs no blush to own its truth,
Nor faltering tongue a love to tell,
Such as might angels' bosoms swell.
You can download the verses on the original book paper as a free high-res JPEG without a watermark here. Lovely as a a vintage scrap to embellish a card, collage, junk journal or scrapbook page.


Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized work by Victorian Trends.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Free for personal use only. Please link back to VictorianTrends.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Free Printable Fashion History Illustration: Edwardian Lady Traveler in Velvet Outfit, 1904

It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude.
To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility,
is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire.
For politeness is like a counter ― an avowedly false coin,
with which it is foolish to be stingy.
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims
A vintage fashion illustration from 1904 showing an elegant Edwardian lady wearing an impressive velvet travelling outfit with a mantelet decorated with prominently placed tassels and a skirt with a bold infinity-loop design. For extra swagger, she has decided to accessorize with a tightly rolled parasol that could potentially be used to school anyone who might try something vulgar.

Original illustration found in my personal collection of La Mode Illustrée. You can download the free ready-to-print 6.75" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG without any watermark for cardmaking, collage, crafting or scrapbooking projects by clicking here.


All digitized work by Victorian Trends.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Free for personal use only. Please link back to VictorianTrends.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Free Printable Fashion History Illustrations: A Pair of Fancy Hats for Spring, 1875

Spring: a lovely reminder of how beautiful change can truly be.
― Anonymous
A pair of vintage fashion illustrations showing fancy hats for spring from 1875. The lady on the left is wearing a hat of black satin-finished chip while the lady on the right is modelling a hat made of dark steel-gray French chip.

You can download the free high-res 12" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG here for use in collage art, crafting projects or to embellish scrapbooking pages.


All digitized work by Victorian Trends.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Free for personal use only. Please link back to VictorianTrends.com as your source when sharing or publishing.