Victorian Cycles
Hand-built 1890's-style bicycles
Interested in a real time machine? Commission one of our 1890s-style custom bicycles! Custom, hand-made steel frames with wooden fenders and chainguards, leather saddles and cork grips. Whether you are interested in a roadster or a racer, we can build you the period bicycle of your dreams.
Books
The Tales of Chetzemoka
First Wheel in Town
Love Will Find A Wheel
A Rapping At The Door
Delivery Delayed
A Trip and a Tumble
Three Women Awheel
First Wheel in Town
Love Will Find A Wheel
A Rapping At The Door
Delivery Delayed
A Trip and a Tumble
Three Women Awheel
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anthologies
Quotations of Quality
A Bouquet of Victorian Roses
Love's Messenger
Words For Parting
The Wheelman's Joy
A Christmas Wish
True Ladies and Proper Gentlemen
Quotations of Quality
A Bouquet of Victorian Roses
Love's Messenger
Words For Parting
The Wheelman's Joy
A Christmas Wish
True Ladies and Proper Gentlemen
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bags, cards, and more printed with beautiful Victorian illustrations from our antique books, magazines and ephemera.
|
|
Tales of Chetzemoka Gifts
"A minute's reading provokes a day's thinking…"
Gifts inspired by the Tales of Chetzemoka series, books beloved by fans young and old around the world.
This Victorian Life Gifts
The past is present
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fashion Plates
|
|
Victorian Corset Images
|
|
Strong Women Collection
|
|
Victorian Quotes Collection
|
|
The Nature of Home Collection
|
***
Victorian Quotes, Poetry & Artwork
Terms of use for images:
Private individuals, personal use:
Include a link to this website <www.ThisVictorianLife.com> when you re-post or share any pictures from our website, and you may do so free of charge.
Commercial use or publication of images:
Please contact us about fees for commercial use.
If one proves weak whom you fancied strong
Or false whom you fancied true,
Just ease the smart of your wounded heart
By the thought that it is not you.
If many forget a promise made,
And your faith falls into the dust
Then look meanwhile in the mirror and smile
And say 'I am the one to trust.'
If you search in vain for an aging face
Unharmed by fretful fears,
Then make right now, and keep a vow
To grow in grace with the years.
If you lose your faith in the word of man
As you go from the port of youth,
Just say as you sail 'I will not fail To keep to the course of truth.'
For this is the way, and the only way— At least it seems so to me.
It is up to you, to be and to do, What you look for in others— See?
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Get this on a card
A minute's reading provokes a day's thinking…
Get this on a bag, poster or mug
Victorian fashion plate, late 19th-century, Godey's.
Get this on a bag, mug, bookmark, stone tile or ceramic tile
1880's advertisement for Columbia bicycles and tricycles
Get this on a poster, mug, bag or card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall."
—Anonymous, 1889.
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall."
—Anonymous, 1889.
Get this image on a card, shopping bag, book bag, poster, wall art, or mug
Victorian corset advertisement
Get this on a mug or a canvas bag
Victorian cyclist bowing to a lady, 1880
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian bicycling quotes and poetry
In The Park
Cycling in the park, they say,
Eyes of blue met eyes of gray.
Whirling, wheeling,
Lightly stealing
Glances soft as break of day.
Cycling in the park, 'tis told,
Eyes of gray grew sweet and bold,
Coming, bending,
Gently sending
Pleading wishes manifold.
Cycling in the park, 'tis true,
Eyes of gray saw eyes of blue
Upward gazing, In amazing,
With the lovelight shining through.
—Outing, 1886.
Get this on a canvas bag, a ceramic tile or a
stone tile
Victorian cycling Valentine, 1880's
Get this on a bag, postcard or mug
Pretty Victorian ladies making a dress
(Originally a Wheeler & Wilcox sewing machine advertisement)
Get this on a bag
Victorian fashion plate, Peterson's Magazine, May, 1890.
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian cycling quotes and poetry
A Song of the Wheel
When the air is rushing past us, and our ride has just begun,
With the hard white road beneath us, and above, the blazing sun,
What a happiness is in us, what a joy is it we feel,
When it's ride, ride, ride, a-riding on the wheel.
We are racing down the roadway, passing tree and field,
Tell us not of other pastimes, and the pleasures that they yield.
For we now are racing madly, nimbly working toe and heel,
For it's race, race, race, a-racing on the wheel.
There's a heavenly sky above us, and Nature laughs aloud!
In our little rustic arbor we forget the "madding crowd."
But now we must be stirring, and down the street we steal,
And it's ring, ring, ring, of the bell above the wheel.
But it isn't always "scorching," and my cycle's pace is slow,
When the one who cycles with me is the lady that I know,
With face divine, a perfect form, a heart as true as steel,
Oh, it's love, love, love, it's Cupid on the wheel.
When Old Time has cycled past me, and my ride is almost done,
And my life will all be evening, and above, the setting sun,
I shall watch the roving cyclist, I shall still be full of zeal,
'Twill be glad, glad, glad, glad memories of the wheel.
—Arthur H. Lawrence, 1896
"A Bicycler's Handkerchief" from
Scribner's Magazine, February, 1880, p. 640
Get your own bicycler's handkerchief!
Get it on an ornament or a handy canvas bag
"Society and civilization are to be determined largely by women." —Anonymous, 1890.
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"It is true that there are liberties and liberties. Yonder torrent, crystal-clear, and arrow-swift, with its spray leaping into the air like white troops of fawns, is free enough. Lost, presently, amidst bankless, boundless marsh — soaking in slow shallowness, as it will, hither and thither, listless among the poisonous reeds and unresisting slime it is free also. We may choose which liberty we like — the restrain of voiceful rock, or the dumb and edgeless shore of darkened sand." — John Ruskin, 1869.
Get this on a card
"A woman requires some place where she can go and pull herself together, where she can shut out the distractions of the household, where the sound of the door-bell cannot reach her… There she can take her grief and there her joys, too sacred to be submitted to other eyes. Here she can receive confidences and extend sympathy. In brief, it is a place where one can be oneself alone or in company, but where no one can enter unasked…"
—Mary Gay Humphreys, 1894.
Get this on a card, mug or bag
Royal Worcester corset advertisement, late 19th-century
Get this on a bag or a mug
Victorian fashion plate, late 19th-century, Godey's.
Get this on a card, mug, porcelain plate, metal lunchbox or canvas bag
Victorian Sukkot die-cut
Get this on a card, mug, metal lunchbox or canvas bag
Victorian Sukkot die-cut
Terms of use for images:
Private individuals, personal use:
Include a link to this website <www.ThisVictorianLife.com> when you re-post or share any pictures from our website, and you may do so free of charge.
Commercial use or publication of images:
Please contact us about fees for commercial use.
Victorian Christmas card with new moon and roses
Get this reprinted on a Christmas card of your own
Victorian Christmas card with moss roses
Get this reprinted on a Christmas card of your own
Get this on a card
I know my companions are getting ahead;
Still, I think I will linger awhile.
I shall not fall far behind, for I've oft heard it said
That a Miss is as good as a mile!
--Outing and the Wheelman, 1884
Get this on a card, mug, or bag
Miss Geraldine Morgan
notebook with 1897 article
Get a book of beautiful Victorian love poetry which includes these verses
Lines Written on Returning
A Lady's Violin
Return, sweet violin, and render
To thy mistress, echoes tender,
Born of songs I've breathed to thee:
Whisper forth in plaintive ditty,
Thrill her gentle soul with pity,
Tune her thoughts to love and me!
If she laugh, and cry "Oh folly!
This is but Love's melancholy,"
Then in lighter lyrics sing,
Murmuring in melodious measure,
How her heart's fairest treasure
Bounteous earth to me can bring!
In thy crannies I have hidden
Songs which need but to be bidden
And their notes will wake anew:
Songs to soothe her grief and sadness,
Summon mirth, woo bliss and gladness,
Songs for every season due.
Go, wanton in the warm caresses
Of maiden hand and cheek and tresses
Happy, happy violin!
Could I be thou when as thou liest
On her breast and softly sighest
Greater joy were none to win.
—Will Hill, 1895
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"A woman may sit in her own quiet room, and, by her love, that brightens the homes of earth, and her faith, that lifts up human hearts to the hope of their heavenly home, she may send out influences that will not only make the world better and happier, but also help it to rise upward in its onward progress."
—Sarah Josepha Hale, 1866.
Get this on a card, mug or bag
Victorian corset advertisement
Get this on a customized calling card
Victorian die-cut
Get this artwork on a customized business card
Victorian calling card
Get this on a card or a poster
Get a book of beautiful Victorian love poetry which includes these verses
Give Me A Rosebud
Ere summer, on unsandaled feet,
Goes, with her wealth of roses sweet,
Oh, darling one, please give to me
A rosebud, sweet and fair to see.
A lovely rose of creamy-white,
Oft kissed by shining rays of light,
And oft refreshed by gentle dew
And summer rain. Oh, dear one true,
Please let this lovely rosebud be
A token of thy love to me.
Oh, give me, dear, a rosebud fair,
That thou hast watched with tender care.
Perfect its beauty; for I know
Its loveliness would rarer grow
Beneath the gleamings of thine eyes,
Bright as the blue of sapphire skies,
A sacred treasure it will be,
A token of thy love to me.
—Aurora Vane, 1883.
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"Home is the blossom of which heaven is the fruit." —Anonymous, 1896.
Get this on a card
Get a book of marvelous Victorian cycling quotes and poetry
"Genuine wheelmen grow readily acquainted with one another, off-hand and "boy-fashion," because the element of heartiness and sincerity in the sport creates the same feeling of fraternity and kinship which exists between boys up to the period when estrangement is caused by the advent of worldly wisdom."
—Karl Kron, 1887.
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"Words are freeborn, and not the vassals of the gruff tyrants of prose to do their bidding only. They have the same right to dance and sing as the dewdrops have to sparkle and the stars to shine."
—Abraham Coles, 1882.
Get this on a card
Get a book of beautiful Victorian love poetry which includes these verses
Love's Eloquence
In dreams of thee I feel the eloquence
That floods the souls of poets half divine;
Earth blooms anew, and music makes a sense
Of glorious pain, and thought gives warmth like wine.
Oh, to give this to language! to distil
With wizardry the heavenly vapor fleet
And in a word, a gem, a flower, at will,
Cast it in trembling passion at thy feet.
—Thomas Walsh, 1900
A Song of the Wheel
When the air is rushing past us, and our ride has just begun,
With the hard white road beneath us, and above, the blazing sun,
What a happiness is in us, what a joy is it we feel,
When it's ride, ride, ride, a-riding on the wheel.
We are racing down the roadway, passing tree and field,
Tell us not of other pastimes, and the pleasures that they yield.
For we now are racing madly, nimbly working toe and heel,
For it's race, race, race, a-racing on the wheel.
There's a heavenly sky above us, and Nature laughs aloud!
In our little rustic arbor we forget the "madding crowd."
But now we must be stirring, and down the street we steal,
And it's ring, ring, ring, of the bell above the wheel.
But it isn't always "scorching," and my cycle's pace is slow,
When the one who cycles with me is the lady that I know,
With face divine, a perfect form, a heart as true as steel,
Oh, it's love, love, love, it's Cupid on the wheel.
When Old Time has cycled past me, and my ride is almost done,
And my life will all be evening, and above, the setting sun,
I shall watch the roving cyclist, I shall still be full of zeal,
'Twill be glad, glad, glad, glad memories of the wheel.
—Arthur H. Lawrence, 1896
Get this on a card
Get a book of marvelous Victorian cycling quotes and poetry
Base-ball of Life
How much a society girl's life resembles
A game of base-ball in the fair field of life;
Her friends, on the judgement stand, eager assemble,
To witness the victory or triumph the strife.
The game has been called and reluctantly entered;
She knows all are watching her heart play—the ball--
Yet none know just where the attraction is centred,
Or even on whom the rich treasure will fall.
The nine who are playing with hearts all afire,
In hopes that opponents defeated return,
Resemble the number of those who aspire
To the hand for which many incessant will yearn.
The first base is he who has won by endeavor
Some token of friendship above all the rest;
The second base, he who for love's sake will weather
E'en love's competition—the fortress to test.
Third base is the man who, in spite of desire
To conquer his passion, must yield to the charm;
Still watches the heart-ball as higher and higher
It rises—then falls—in another man's palm.
Short-stop's the man who is furthest from winning,
And yet he is nearer the pitcher, 'tis true;
He eagerly watches the heart-ball while spinning--
In somebody's heaven—and he becomes blue.
Throughout the whole poem that heart's been ascending,
Far into man's heaven, expanding so wide;
But now it has changed and downward descending,
It falls to the catcher! Who is he? Decide!
—J. Adele Mulligan
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian love poetry which includes these verses
Get this on a card, poster, bag, mug or special Halloween mug
Victorian ghost story trade card. Note the similarity between the woman and a young Queen Victoria, and the corresponding similarity between the portrait in the background and Victoria's consort Prince Albert. Coincidence? I think not!
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"Everything that exists has its origin in the past." —Alexandre Dumas, 1861.
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian cycling quotes and poetry
"I am of opinion that no exercise for women has ever been discovered that is to them so really useful [as riding a high wheel tricycle]. Young and middle-aged ladies can learn to ride the tricycle with greatest facility, and they become excellently skillful. One young lady, who is very dear to me, can beat me both in pace and in distance, and in a tour we have made to-day of several miles on a beautiful country road, we have enjoyed ourselves as much as when we ride out together on horseback, while we have had better exercise. I shall rejoice to see the time when this exercise shall be as popular amongst girls and women as tennis and the dance, for the more fully the physical life of our womankind is developed, the better for men as well as women."
—Dr. B.W. Richardson, 1882.
Get this on a card
Winter
Like a blushing maiden
Nature hides her face,
But by what she loses
Gains an added grace.
While the snowflakes thickly
Flutter through the gloom,
Let the dancing fire-flames
Cheer our cozy room.
And though it be winter
We'll not think of sorrow,
For from friendship's hearthstone
Summer warmth we'll borrow.
—Fred Miller, 1883
Get this on a card, mug or bag
Victorian valentine with bicycling girls
|
|
Get this on a card, mug or bag
Victorian valentine with bicycling boys
Love's Greeting
Ever through life's pilgrimage
Be it thine to know
That sweet, helpful sympathy
Which loving hearts bestow.
A Ballade of This Age
Long years ago, when garb of steel
Was worn to war by gallants gay,
And valiant hearts o'erflowed with zeal
Their knightly prowess to display;
When men believed in elf and fay,--
Then lovers often wielded lance,
And risked their lives in mortal fray,
For maiden's praise or tender glance.
Oblivion now has set its seal
On those proud deeds of ages gray,
When Love to ladies made appeal
Through minstrel's lute or poet's lay;
Extinguished now is ev'ry ray
Of that bright sun of old Romance,
And unmoved now those hommes d'epée
By maiden's praise or tender glance.
Time's onward course now doth reveal
Another chivalry today;
They ride no steed but trusty Wheel;
No garb of steel doth them array.
Yet gallant knights and true are they;
Full hard they ride, oft brook mischance,
And daring feats full oft essay,
For maiden's praise or tender glance.
Envoy
O 'cycling knights of our late day!
Her dearest prize Fortuna grants,
And sweetest guerdon doth convey,
In maiden's praise or tender glance.
—Basil Webb, 1883.
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian cycling quotes and poetry
Get this on a card
Victorian bicycle advertisement
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian love poetry which includes these verses
Why?
I cannot tell you why I love you.
Ask the dewdrop on the rose
Why it falls and rests so softly,
Ere the lovely leaves unclose.
I cannot tell you why I love you.
Ask the bird who sweetly sings
Why he trills his tender carol,
List the answer which he brings.
I cannot tell you why I love you.
Love were lost if it could speak.
But your voice is as the bird-song,
As the dewy rose your cheek.
—Minnie C. Ballard, 1883
Get this on a card
June
A sky full of blue and an earth spread with green,
With fleecy white clouds softly floating between,
With trees full of leaves and of songsters in tune,
Oh! What can this be but our beautiful June?
She throws out her signal o'er garden and wall,
She tosses her banner of roses to all;
No matter what scenes or how sweetly attune,
A month without roses could never be June. —Sarah E. Howard, 1888
Get this on a card
For A Birthday
How many years have subtly wrought,
With patient art and loving care,
To rear this pleasurehouse of thought,
This fabric of a woman fair?
'Twere vain to guess: years leave no trace
On that soft cheek's translucent swell;
Time, lingering to behold that face,
Is cheated of his purpose fell.
Why ask how many, when I find
Her charm with every morrow new?
How be so stupid?
Was I blind?
Next birthday I shall ask how few.
—James Russell Lowell, 1892
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian love poetry which includes these verses
A Gift
What's the best thing I can offer
As a gift for you to-day?
Any present I may proffer
You will value it, you say.
That is very sweetly spoken,
Yet, however that may be,
I should wish to choose the token
Carefully—so let us see.
Shall I send a nosegay, dearest?
Ah! the summer flowers are dead,
And the leaves are in their serest,
And the fruit has lost its red;
And, besides, the flowers would perish,
Lose their scent, and fade and die;
But a gift for you to cherish
Should be more than petals dry.
Shall I send a pretty present,
Something tasteful, something rare?
Something to the senses pleasant,
Something quaint, or something fair?
Yet, perhaps, you would not choose it,
If the choice could rest with you,
And some day perhaps you'd lose it,
Or the thing might break in two.
Shall I send you for your reading
Some loved book of noble thought,
Spirit-stirring, spirit-leading,
Teaching what you would be taught?
Yet perhaps upon the morrow
I might learn 'twas yours before,
Or some day a friend might borrow,
To return it never more!
What if I to-day should send you
Something of my very own,
No one else can give or lend you,
No one ask for on a loan--
Something that will still be waking
When the flowers in dust are strewed?
Something far too strong for breaking,
And you can't lose if you would.
Love I send you, very tender,
Everlasting, ever true,
That will show you how the sender
Thinks and cares and feels for you;
And when life is at its dreariest,
Or when outside things look grey,
May my fadeless present, dearest,
Point you to a brighter day!
—Harriet L. Childe-Pemberton, 1883.
Get this on a greeting card or playing cards
Victorian corset advertisement
Get this on a greeting card
Get a book of Victorian bicycling quotes and poetry
On the Road
Away we go on our wheels, boys,
As free as the roving breeze,
And over our pathway steals, boys,
The music of wind-swept trees;
And round by the woods and over the hill
Where the ground so gently swells,
From a thousand throats in echoing notes
The songster melody wells.
Along we speed o'er the road, boys--
The road that we love so well;
Those oaks know the whir of our wheels, boys,
And they welcome the cycler's bell;
And down in the hollow the streamlet flows
In rollicking humor along,
While flinging its wavelets' cadence up
To challenge the cyclers' song.
Above us we feel in the air, boys,
A spirit that's kin with ours--
A spirit that gives to our life, boys,
The brightest of earth's best flowers;
For the health and the strength that are beauty's own,
That are stamped with Nature's seal,
Are securely bound and circled round
In the spokes of the flying wheel.
—Chris Wheeler, 1885.
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer."
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1859.
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian poetry and stories about roses
To the Rose
An Ancient Poem Translated
The Spring comes garland bearing,
And wreath and blossom wearing;
And we will aye be singing
The Roses, she is bringing.
Come! Comrades! Songs are ringing
To Summer's Rose! Sweet Summer's Rose.
Like breath from heaven's own portals
Come Roses bright to mortals;
The Graces sow their praises;
The Loves in flow'ry mazes,
Each one, his voice upraises,
To sing with Cithèra's[1] toy.
Plant, pleasing to the Muses,
With love all song infuses;
The fragrance from its treasure
It pours with equal measure
On him, whose touch is pleasure,
Or him who strays in thorny ways.
The wise delight and revel
In Roses' bright apparel;
When purple wine is flowing,
When banquets loud are growing,
The Rose from colours glowing,
Gives crimson leaves for wine-god's wreaths.
The Dawn is rosy-fingered;
O'er nymphs have Rose tints lingered;
Love's colour, blooms yet clearer,
On Rosy-hued Cithèra!
What theme, to poets dearer,
Than soft Rose light on Goddess bright.
This flower takes off diseases,
In sickness gently pleases;
Its old ager cannot sever
The scent it loses never;
And dead, we keep forever
The perfumed air of Roses fair.
Come! Hear! Its birth I'm telling:
When Pontus, from his dwelling
Brought forth from Cithèra tender;
The blue seas did surrender
Love's Queen, who rose in splendour
From laughing foam with Gods to roam.
When Zeus his Goddess shewing,
Who, from his brain was growing;
No longer he retained her,
But Queen of War! Proclaimed her;
Athène! Great! He named her;
And forth she came, War-Queen to reign.
Then Earth her bloom unfolded,
And sprays of blossom moulded;
Her glowing Roses forming
With colours from the morning,
Made flowers for Gods adorning--
Thus Earth did bear the Rose Gods wear.
--Anacreontea.
Ancient text; this version translated by Mrs. Herbert Hills, 1884.
[1] Cithèra: another name for Venus
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"[F]or the one we truly love we entertain at once the highest respect, the deepest reverence, the most tender kindness and the most intense sympathy; and our keenest approbativeness is experienced in relations to that one. In that one we see the heights and depths of real beauty and genuine purity; toward that one we are peculiarly and irresistibly attracted, as iron is drawn to a magnet."
—Lyman B. Sperry, 1900.
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian love poetry which includes these verses
A Secret Way
A secret way--
'Twas made and kept for thee alone, my Love,
And never trod by man until the day When thou didst tread its lily-beds, my Love,
And mad'st new lilies spring
When'er thy conquering footsteps fell, my King.
A secret way--
Among its 'wildering dewy bowers, my Love,
Another but myself must go astray.
Facile to thee, the flower-grown maze, my Love;
Of clue hast thou no need;
Straight to my heart of hearts, that way doth lead.
—S. Alice Ranlett, 1896
Get this on a card, a mug, or a water bottle
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"What is a book? A book is brains boiled down, distilled and mixed with printer's ink. A book means civilization. It means language fixed and frozen, carved into immortal beauty… A book is a garden; an orchard, a storehouse; it is company by the way; it is a counselor. Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our minds the minds of sages and heroes. A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit treasured up on a purpose for a life beyond."
—J.F. Spaunhurst, 1896.
My Wheel
I love my wheel as men are said
At times to love a horse,
And when I treat it harshly I
Am filled with much remorse.
I take it on the best of roads,
And keep its tires fed.
I never fill them with bad air,
But choose the best instead.
And as horse-lovers groom their steeds
Until their sleek sides shine,
So with the best of polish I
Rub up that bike of mine.
And when it shows some weakness
In its sprockets I repair
As horsemen, to the doctor who
Will give it best of care.
And in return my well-loved wheel
Shows me affection great.
It rarely throws me o'er its head
To crack my massive pate.
And if it happens that I fall,
As it must sometimes be,
My grateful little wheel takes care
That it falls not on me.
Yet, like a horse, it has some faults,
At which I close my eyes.
Sometimes upon the boulevard
My little bikelet shies.
Sometimes, when I would mount, it seems
Quite frisky, and will go
Off to one side and wobble for
A dozen yards or so.
But on the whole it's amiable,
Its spirits never flag,
And I would never swap it off
For any splendid nag.
For best of all its qualities,
When winters on the hook,
My little bikey is no tax
Upon my pocketbook.
--Harper's Bazaar, 1896.
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian bicycling quotes and poetry
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian bicycling quotes and poetry
"Now we are the band who sing
Of Bicicle or 'cycle alike,
Howe'er you pronounce it
We'll never renounce it
The praise of the elegant 'bike…"
—The Wheelman, 1882
Get this on a card
Get a book of great Victorian quotes like this one
"To me, words are a mystery and a marvel… There is no point where art so nearly touches nature as when it appears in the form of words."
—J.G. Holland, 1884.
Get this on a card
Get a book of Victorian bicycling quotes and poetry
A Song of the Wheel
When the air is rushing past us, and our ride has just begun,
With the hard white road beneath us, and above, the blazing sun,
What a happiness is in us, what a joy is it we feel,
When it's ride, ride, ride, a-riding on the wheel.
We are racing down the roadway, passing tree and field,
Tell us not of other pastimes, and the pleasures that they yield.
For we now are racing madly, nimbly working toe and heel,
For it's race, race, race, a-racing on the wheel.
There's a heavenly sky above us, and Nature laughs aloud!
In our little rustic arbor we forget the "madding crowd."
But now we must be stirring, and down the street we steal,
And it's ring, ring, ring, of the bell above the wheel.
But it isn't always "scorching," and my cycle's pace is slow,
When the one who cycles with me is the lady that I know,
With face divine, a perfect form, a heart as true as steel,
Oh, it's love, love, love, it's Cupid on the wheel.
When Old Time has cycled past me, and my ride is almost done,
And my life will all be evening, and above, the setting sun,
I shall watch the roving cyclist, I shall still be full of zeal,
'Twill be glad, glad, glad, glad memories of the wheel.
—Arthur H. Lawrence
Cycling World, 1896.
Get this on a card or a poster
The Years
Many years may come and go,
Many faces greet the sight,
But among them none can show
One like you to me so bright.
—Thomas E. Hill, 1891.
***