So much light and life in the landscape at this date.

May 18.

The landscape is most beautiful looking towards the sun (in the orchard on Fair Haven) at four.

First, there is this green slope on which I sit, looking down between the rows of apple trees just being clothed with tender green, - sometimes underneath them to the sparkling water, or over through them, or seeing them against the sky.

Secondly, the outline of this bank or hill is drawn against the water far below; the river still high, a beautifully bright sheen on the water there, a fine sparkling shimmer in front, owing to the remarkable clearness of the atmosphere (clarified by the May storm?).

Thirdly, on either side of the wood beyond the river are patches of bright, tender, yellowish, velvety green grass in meadows and on hillsides. Those great fields of green affect me as did those early green blades by the Corner Spring -like a fire flaming up from the earth. 

Fourthly, the forest, the dark-green pines, wonderfully distinct, near and erect, with their distinct dark stems, spiring tops, regularly disposed branches, and silvery light on their needles . They seem to wear an aspect as much fresher and livelier as the other trees, - though their growth can hardly be perceptible yet, - as if they had been washed by the rains and the air.They are now being invested with the light, sunny, yellowish-green of the deciduous trees. 

May 18, 2022

This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date. The week when the deciduous trees are generally and conspicuously expanding their leaves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1852

This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape. See May 18, 1851 ("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green."); 

May 18, 1852 ("Combined with the tender fresh green, you have this remarkable clearness of the air. I doubt if the landscape will be any greener."); See also May 17, 1852 ("Now the sun has come out after the May storm, how bright, how full of freshness and tender promise and fragrance is the new world!"); May 17, 1853 ("Now is the time to admire the very young and tender leaves"); May 17, 1854 (“The wooded shore is all lit up with the tender, bright green of birches fluttering in the wind and shining in the light”)