To Loring's Pond

May 17.

Decidedly fair weather at last; a bright, breezy, flowing, washing day.

The different color of the water at different times. To-day it is full of light and life, the breeze presenting many surfaces to the sun. There is a sparkling shimmer on it. It is a deep, dark blue, as the sky is clear. The air everywhere is, as it were, full of the rippling of waves.



This pond is the more interesting for the islands in it. The water is seen running behind them. It is pleasant to know that it penetrates quite behind and isolates the land you see, and to see it flowing out from behind an island with shining ripples.

The sun on the young foliage of birches, alders, etc., on the opposite side of the pond has an enchanting effect. The sunshine has a double effect. The new leaves abet it, so fresh and tender, not apprehending their insect foes. Do I smell the young birch leaves at a distance ?

Most trees are beautiful when leafing out, but especially the birch. After a storm at this season, the sun comes out and lights up the tender expanding leaves, and all nature is full of light and fragrance, and the birds sing without ceasing, and the earth is a fairyland. The birch leaves are so small that you see the landscape through the tree, and they are like silvery and green spangles in the sun, fluttering about the tree.

I see dark pines in the distance in the sunshine, contrasting with the light fresh green of the deciduous trees.

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! The woods putting forth new leaves; it is a memorable season. So hopeful! These young leaves have the beauty of flowers.

There is life in these fresh and varied colors, life in the motion of the wind and the waves; all make it a flowing, washing day. It is a good day to saunter.

Does not summer begin after the May storm?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 17, 1852

This pond is the more interesting for the islands in it. See September 12, 1851 ("I love to gaze at the low island in the pond, — at any island or inaccessible land."); December 14, 1850 ("I walk on Loring's Pond to three or four islands there which I have never visited.")

The birch leaves are so small that you see the landscape through the tree, and they are like silvery and green spangles in the sun, fluttering about the tree.... See 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, ...")

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 24, 1860 ("How perfectly new and fresh the world is seen to be, when we behold a myriad sparkles of brilliant white sunlight on a rippled stream.")
Does not summer begin after the May storm? See  May 11, 1854 (" I suspect that summer weather may be always ushered in in a similar manner, — thunder-shower, rainbow, smooth water, and warm night.")