To Flint's Pond

July 30

The fore part of this month was the warmest weather we have had; the last part, sloping toward autumn, has reflected some of its coolness, for we are very forward to anticipate the fall. 

How long since I heard a veery?  Do they go, or become silent, when the goldfinches herald the autumn? 

Do not all flowers that blossom after mid-July remind us of the fall? 

After midsummer we have a belated feeling as if we had all been idlers, and are forward to see in each sight and hear in each sound some presage of the fall, just as in middle age man anticipates the end of life.

The ripple-marks on the east shore of Flint's are nearly parallel firm ridges in the white sand, one inch or more apart. They are very distinctly felt by the naked feet of the wader.  

I notice a small blue egg washed up and half buried by the white sand, and as it lay there, alternately wet and dry, no color could be fairer, no gem could have a more advantageous or favorable setting. And is not that shell something very precious that houses that winged life? 

Caught in a thunder-shower, when south of Flint's Pond. It is a grand sound, that of the rain on the leaves of the forest a quarter of a mile distant, approaching.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 30, 1852


After midsummer we have a belated feeling. .See July 26, 1853 ("How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent! This the afternoon of the year.”) See also A Book of the Seasons: Midsummer midlife blues.

July 30. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 30

The grand sound of rain

on the leaves of the forest –

distant, approaching.

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