All at once a strain that sounds like old times and recalls a hundred associations. Not at once do I remember that a year has elapsed since I heard it, and then the idea of the bobolink is formed in my mind.
See a kingbird, looking like a large phoebe, on a willow by the river, and hear higher the clear whistle of the oriole.
New days, then, have come, ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee, and now made perfect by the twittering of the kingbird and the whistle of the oriole amid the elms, which are but just beginning to leaf out, thinking of his nest there, - if not already the bobolink.
The warbling vireo promised warmer days, but the oriole ushers in summer heats.
P. M. - To Saw Mill Brook and Smith's Hill. It is remarkable that I saw this morning for the first time the bobolink, gold robin, and kingbird, - and have since heard the first two in various parts of the town and am satisfied that they have just come, - and, in the woods, the veery note. I hear the ringing sound of the toads borne on the rippling wind as I keep down the causeway.
The three colored violet, as I observe them this afternoon, are thus distinguished the ovata, a dark lilac, especially in sun; the cucullata, oftenest slaty blue, sometimes lilac , deeper within, more or less pale and striped; the pedata, large, exposed, clear pale-blue with a white spot. None like the sky, but pedata most like it; lilac ovata least like it. Yet the last is the richest-colored. The pedata often pale to whiteness. It begins now to be quite obvious along the side of warm and sandy woodland paths . May 10, 1853
The three colored violet, as I observe them this afternoon, are thus distinguished the ovata, a dark lilac, especially in sun; the cucullata, oftenest slaty blue, sometimes lilac , deeper within, more or less pale and striped; the pedata, large, exposed, clear pale-blue with a white spot. None like the sky, but pedata most like it; lilac ovata least like it. Yet the last is the richest-colored. The pedata often pale to whiteness. It begins now to be quite obvious along the side of warm and sandy woodland paths . May 10, 1853
The hornbeam (Carpinus) is just ready to bloom its hop-like catkins shorter than those of the Ostrya do not shed pollen just yet. I was in search of this and not observing it at first and having forgotten it I sat down on a rock with the thought that if I sat there quietly a little while I might see some flower or other object about me; unexpectedly, as I cast my eyes upward' over my head stretched a spreading branch of the carpinus full of small catkins with anthers now reddish' spread like a canopy just over my head. As it is best to sit in a grove and let the birds come to you, so, as it were, even the flowers will come to you.
***
I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant: See June 30, 1852 ("Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; her scenes must be associated with humane affections... She is most significant to a lover."); August 7, 1853( "The objects I behold correspond to my mood"); May 6, 1854 ("Your observation, to be interesting, i. e. to be significant, must be subjective. "); May 23,1854 ("We soon get through with nature.")
All nature will fable, and every natural phenomenon be a myth: See November 9, 1851 ("Facts should be material to the mythology which I am writing; I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic.”)
It is a lush spring-green morning. Rained in the night. Low gray clouds driving Dylan to work. Suddenly sunlight in the Meadows and I am chasing shadows down the road. At the dump I hear a Yellow warbler. ~ Zphx Saturday, May 10, 2013.
From the hill I look westward over the landscape. The deciduous woods are in their hoary youth every expanding bud swaddled with downy webs. From this more eastern hill with the whole breadth of the river valley on the west the mountains appear higher still the width of the blue border is greater not mere peaks or a short and shallow sierra but a high blue table land with broad foundations a deep and solid base or tablet in proportion to the peaks that rest on it. As you ascend the near and low hills sink and flatten into the earth no sky is seen behind them the distant mountains rise .The truly great are distinguished Vergers crests of the waves of earth which in the highest break at the summit into granitic rocks over which the air beats . A part of their hitherto concealed base is seen blue. You see not the domes only but the body the façade of these terrene temples. You see that the foundation answers to the superstructure .Moral structures. The sweet fern leaves among odors now .The successive lines of haze which divide the western landscape deeper and more misty over each intervening valley are not yet very dense yet there is a light atmospheric line along the base of the mountains for their whole length formed by this denser and grosser atmosphere through which we look next the earth which almost melts them into the atmosphere like the contact of molten metal with that which is unfused but their pure sublimed tops and main body rise palpable skyland above it like the waving signal of the departing who have already left these shores .
It will be worth the while to observe carefully the direction and altitude of the mountains from the Cliffs. The value of the mountains in the horizon would not that be a good theme for a lecture. The text for a discourse on real values and permanent a sermon on the mount. They are stepping stones to heaven as the rider has a horse block at his gate by which to mount when we would commence our pilgrimage to heaven by which we gradually take our departure from earth from the time when our youthful eyes first rested on them from this bare actual earth which has so little of the hue of heaven. They make it easier to die and easier to live. They let us off. . . .
Whether any picture by a human master hung on our western wall could supply their place. Whether to shovel them away and level them would really smooth the way to the true west Whether the skies would not weep over their scars/
They are valuable to mankind as is the iris of the eye to a man. They are the path of the translated. The undisputed territory between earth and heaven. In our travels rising higher and higher we at length got to where the earth was blue.Suggesting that this earth unless our conduct curse it is as celestial as that sky. They are the pastures to which we drive our thoughts on these 20ths of May.
George Baker told me the other day that he had driven cows to Winchendon forty miles in one day. Men often spend a great deal on a border to their papered walls of the costliest figure and colors ultramarine or what other. This color bears a price like precious stones. We may measure our wealth then by the number of square rods of superficial blue earth in our earth border . Such proportion as it bears to the area of the visible earth in such proportion are we heavenly minded .Yet I doubt if I can find a man in this country who would not think it better if they were converted into solid gold which could in no case be a blessing to all but only a curse to a few and so they would be stepping stones to hell.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 10, 1853
New days, then, have come ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee, and now made perfect by the twittering of the kingbird and the whistle of the oriole amid the elms. See May 10, 1858 ("Going down-town in the morning, I hear the warbling vireo, golden robin, catbird, and summer yellowbird. . . .As I paddle along, hear the Maryland yellow-throat, the bobolink, the oven-bird, and the yellow-throated vireo. . . .It is remarkable how many new birds have come all at once to-day. ")
In the woods, the veery note. See May 10, 1858 ("Hear in various woods the yorrick note of the veery.")
New days, then, have come ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee, and now made perfect by the twittering of the kingbird and the whistle of the oriole amid the elms. See May 10, 1858 ("Going down-town in the morning, I hear the warbling vireo, golden robin, catbird, and summer yellowbird. . . .As I paddle along, hear the Maryland yellow-throat, the bobolink, the oven-bird, and the yellow-throated vireo. . . .It is remarkable how many new birds have come all at once to-day. ")
In the woods, the veery note. See May 10, 1858 ("Hear in various woods the yorrick note of the veery.")
I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant: See June 30, 1852 ("Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; her scenes must be associated with humane affections... She is most significant to a lover."); August 7, 1853( "The objects I behold correspond to my mood"); May 6, 1854 ("Your observation, to be interesting, i. e. to be significant, must be subjective. "); May 23,1854 ("We soon get through with nature.")
All nature will fable, and every natural phenomenon be a myth: See November 9, 1851 ("Facts should be material to the mythology which I am writing; I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic.”)
It is a lush spring-green morning. Rained in the night. Low gray clouds driving Dylan to work. Suddenly sunlight in the Meadows and I am chasing shadows down the road. At the dump I hear a Yellow warbler. ~ Zphx Saturday, May 10, 2013.
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
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