What could a man learn by watching the clouds?

June 24.

P. M. – Το White Pond . The keys of the white ash cover the trees profusely , a sort of mulberry brown , an inch and a half long , handsome . The Vaccinium macrocarpon , probably for some days . The Calopogon pulchellus ( Cymbidium of Bigelow ) , grass pink of some , a pretty purple arethusa - like flower in a shady low copse on Corner road , near the Asclepias quadrifolia , a rather striking flower with two umbels of small pink and white flowers standing above the sur- rounding herbage . Spiræa salicifolia by the roadsides . Archangelica atropurpurea , interesting for its great umbels and vigorous growth of its purplish but rank- smelling stem . It is one of the most forward early leaves in warm springy places . I perceive excrescences on the grape leaves and vines , resembling in their form and disposition the grape clusters that are to be . 

The drifting white downy clouds are objects of a large, diffusive interest. Like all great themes, they are always at hand to be considered, or they float over us unregarded. They are unobtrusive. Far away they float in the serene sky, the most inoffensive of objects. What could a man learn by watching the clouds? The objects which go over our heads unobserved are vast and indefinite. They are among the most glorious objects in nature. They are the flitting sails in that ocean whose bounds no man has visited. A sky without clouds is a meadow without flowers, a sea without sails.

I still perceive that wonderful fragrance from the meadow ( ? ) on the Corner causeway , intense as ever . It is one of those effects whose cause it is best not to know , perchance . Uncommonly cool weather now , after warm days and nights for a week or more . I see many grasshoppers for the first time ( only single ones before ) , in the grass in the White Pond road . They describe a thousand little curves as I walk , with an ominous dry rustling of their wings , about three quarters of an inch long . Come to eat the grass ? It is the biggest game our dog starts . Much of the June - grass is dead ; most of it in dry fields . White Pond very handsome to - day . The shore alive with pollywogs of large size , which ripple the water on our approach . There is a fine sparkle on the water , though not equal to the fall one quite . The water is very high , so that you cannot walk round it , but it is the more pleasant while you are swimming to see how the trees actually rise out of it on all sides . It bathes their feet . The pines now hold somewhat of a subordi- nate rank amid the flourishing evergreens . The dog worried a woodchuck , half grown , which did not turn its back and run into its hole , but backed into it and faced him and us , gritting its teeth and pre- pared to die . But even this little fellow was able to defend himself against the dog with his sharp teeth . That fierce gritting of their teeth is a remarkable habit with these animals . I am disappointed to notice to - day that most of the pine - tops incline to the west , as if the wind had to do with it . The panicled andromeda has froth on it . 

The Linnæa borealis just going out of blossom. I should have found it long ago. Its leaves densely cover the ground. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 24, 1852

June 24, 2012

The drifting white downy clouds . . . See June 4, 1855 ("Great white-bosomed clouds, darker beneath, float through the cleared sky and are seen against the deliciously blue sky, such a sky as we have not had before."); June 9, 1856 ("There are some large cumuli with glowing downy cheeks floating about"); June 11, 1856 ("Great cumuli are slowly drifting in the intensely blue sky, with glowing white borders”). Also January 13, 1852 (“Here I am on the Cliffs . . .I look up and they are gone, like the steam from the engine in the winter air. Even a considerable cloud is dissolved and dispersed in a minute or two, and nothing is left but the pure ether. Then another comes by magic, is born out of the pure blue empyrean, and now this too has disappeared, and no one knows whither it is gone.”); August 9, 1860 (". . . all at once a small cloud begins to form half a mile from the summit and rapidly grows in a mysterious manner till it drapes and conceals the summit above us for a few moments, then passes off and disappears northeastward just as it had come..Watching these small clouds forming and dissolving about the summit of our mountain, I cast my eyes toward the dim bluish outline of the Green Mountains in the clear red evening sky, and, to my delight, I detect exactly over the summit of Saddleback Mountain, some sixty miles distant, its own little cloud . . . a sort of fortunate isle in the sunset sky, the local cloud of the mountain.”)