A pensive walk -- in season.

May 23. 

The poet must bring to Nature the smooth mirror in which she is to be reflected. 

I am surprised by the dark orange-yellow of the senecio. At first we had the lighter, paler spring yellows of willows, dandelion, cinquefoil, then the darker and deeper yellow of the buttercup; and then this broad distinction between the buttercup and the senecio, as the seasons revolve toward July. 

Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind. Have I any dark or ripe orange-yellow thoughts to correspond? The flavor of my thoughts begins to correspond.

When the chaste and pensive eve draws on, suddenly the walker begins to reflect. A certain lateness in the sound releases me from the obligation to return in any particular season. I have passed the Rubicon of staying out. I have said to myself, that way is not homeward; I will wander further from what I have called my home - to the home which is forever inviting me. In such an hour the freedom of the woods is offered me, and the birds sing my dispensation. 

At Loring's Wood I hear and see a tanager.  

How he enhances the wildness and wealth of the woods! That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky! Even when I have heard his note and look for him and find the fellow sitting on a dead twig of a pine, I am always startled. (They seem to love the darkest and thickest pines.) That incredible red, with the green and blue.

I am transported; these are not the woods I ordinarily walk in.

 
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 23, 1853

I am surprised by the dark orange-yellow of the senecio. See June 9, 1853 ("The meadows are now yellow with the golden senecio, a more orange yellow, mingled with the light glossy yellow of the buttercup") and note to June 6, 1858 ("Golden senecio is not uncommon now.")

How different the ramrod jingle of the chewink or any bird's note sounds now at 5 p. m. in the cooler, stiller air, when also the humming of insects is more distinctly heard, and perchance some impurity has begun to sink to earth strained by the air. Or is it, perchance, to be referred to the cooler, more clarified and pensive state of the mind, when dews have begun to descend in it and clarify it? Chaste eve! A certain lateness in the sound, pleasing to hear, which releases me from the obligation to return in any particular season. I have passed the Rubicon of staying out. I have said to myself, that way is not homeward; I will wander further from what I have called my home — to the home which is forever inviting me. In such an hour the freedom of the woods is offered me, and the birds sing my dispensation. 

In dreams the links of life are united: we forget that our friends are dead; we know them as of old. An abundance of pure white fringed polygalas, very delicate, by the path at Harrington's mud-hole. Thus many flowers have their nun sisters, dressed in white. 

At Loring's Wood heard and saw a tanager. That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky! Even when I have heard his note and look for him and find the bloody fellow, sitting on a dead twig of a pine, I am always startled. (They seem to love the darkest and thickest pines.) That incredible red, with the green and blue, as if these were the trinity we wanted. Yet with his hoarse note he pays for his color. I am transported; these are not the woods I ordinarily walk in. He sunk Concord in his thought. How he enhances the wildness and wealth of the woods! This and the emperor moth make the tropical phenomena of our zone. There is warmth in the pewee's strain, but this bird's colors and his note tell of Brazil. Even in remotest woods the trivial noon has its rule and its limit. When the chaste and pensive eve draws on, suddenly the walker begins to reflect.

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau May 23

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 © 2009-2021