On the river by Hubbard's meadow.

June 17

A small thunder-shower comes up in the south-west. The thunder sounds like moving a pile of boards in the attic. 

We see the increasing outline of the slate-colored falling rain from the black cloud. It passes mainly to the south. We feel only the wind of it at first, but after it appears to back up and we get some rain.  

In the damp, warm evening after the rain, the fireflies appear to be more numerous than ever.

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

The thunder sounds like moving a pile of boards in the attic. See July 20, 1851 ("The clap that wakes me is as if some one is moving lumber in an upper apartment.");  May 29, 1857 ("The crashing thunder sounds like the overhauling of lumber on heaven's loft.")

The increasing outline of the slate-colored falling rain from the black cloud. June 8, 1860 ("Within a day or two has begun that season of summer when you see afternoon showers, maybe with thunder, or the threat of them, dark in the horizon, and are uncertain whether to venture far away or without an umbrella . . . you see perhaps, in the south west or west or maybe east horizon, a dark and threatening mass of cloud showing itself just over the woods, its base horizontal and dark, with lighter edges where it is rolled up to the light, while all beneath is the kind of dark slate of falling rain. These are summer showers, come with the heats of summer.”)

It passes mainly to the south.  See June 17, 1860 ("About 1 P.M., notice thunder-clouds in west and hear the muttering. As yesterday, it splits at sight of Concord and goes south and north") See also June 16, 1860 ("Thunder-showers show themselves about 2 P.M. in the west, but split at sight of Concord and go east on each side.”); June 16, 1854 ("Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us.”)

The fireflies appear to be more numerous than ever.  See June 22, 1852  ("The fireflies in the meadows are very numerous, as if they had replenished their lights from the lightning.") Compare July 20, 1852 ("The stars are few and distant; the fireflies fewer still.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies, winged sparks of fire!

June 17. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 17

The outline of the slate-

colored rain falling from the

black cloud passing south. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, On the river by Hubbard's meadow.

 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 © 2009-2026

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