A meadow and an island.

April 14.

On the Cliffs. 

If it were not for the snow it would be a remarkably pleasant, as well as warm, day.

It is now perfectly calm. The different parts of Fair Haven Pond -- the pond, the meadow beyond the button-bush and willow curve, the island, and the meadow between the island and mainland with its own defining lines -- are all parted off like the parts of a mirror. 

A fish hawk is calmly sailing over all, looking for his prey. 

I see the motions of a muskrat on the calm sunny surface a great way off. 

So perfectly calm and beautiful, and yet no man looking at it this morning but myself. 

It is pleasant to see the zephyrs strike the smooth surface of the pond from time to time, and a darker shade ripple over it.


The streams break up; the ice goes to the sea. Then sails the fish hawk overhead, looking for his prey.

***

The snow goes off fast, for I hear it melting and the eaves dripping all night as well as all day. 

I have been out every afternoon this past winter, as usual, in sun and wind, snow and rain, without being particularly tanned. This forenoon I walked in the woods and felt the heat reflected from the snow so sensibly in some parts of the cut on the railroad that I was reminded of those oppressive days two or three summers ago, when the laborers were obliged to work by night.  Well, since I have come home , this afternoon and evening, I find that I am suddenly tanned, even to making the skin of my nose sore.

The sun, reflected thus from snow in April, perhaps especially in the forenoon, possesses a tanning power.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 14, 1852

The different parts of Fair Haven Pond are all parted off like the parts of a mirror. See November 20, 1850 ("I saw Fair Haven Pond with its island, and meadow between the island and the shore, and a strip of perfectly still and smooth water in the lee of the island, and two hawks, fish hawks perhaps, sailing over it"). See also April 14, 1855 ("The waters, too, are smooth and full of reflections.")

A fish hawk is calmly sailing over all, looking for his prey. See April 14, 1856 ("See from my window a fish hawk flying high west of the house,. . .he suddenly wheels and, straightening out his long narrow wings, makes one circle high above the last meadow, as if he had caught a glimpse of a fish beneath, and then continues his course down the river.") See also April 6, 1859 ("A fish hawk sails down the river, from time to time almost stationary one hundred feet above the water, notwithstanding the very strong wind."); April 7, 1859 ("The fish hawk which you see soaring and sailing so leisurely about over the land — for this one soared quite high into the sky at one time — may have a fish in his talons all the while and only be waiting till you are gone for an opportunity to eat it on his accustomed perch.") and A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Osprey (Fish Hawk)

April 14. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 14.

Ice goes to the sea.

The fish hawk sails overhead

looking for his prey.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A Meadow and an Island

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520414