Thursday, August 15, 2013

An inky noonday darkness heralds the evening of the year.

August 15.

Rain again in the night, but now clear. It has been melting weather; hundreds sunstruck in New York. Sultry, mosquitoey nights, with both windows and door open, and scarcely a sheet to be endured. 

But now it is cooler and beautifully clear at last after all these rains, and the crickets chirp with a still more autumnal sound.

Instead of the late bluish mistiness, I see a distinct, dark shade under the edge of the woods, the effect of the luxuriant foliage seen through the clear air. It is a pleasure to look at the washed woods far away. You see every feature of the white pine grove with distinctness, -- the stems of the trees, then the dark shade, then their fresh sunlit outsides -- and an inky darkness as of night under the edge of the woods, now at noonday heralding the evening of the year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 15, 1853


. . .heralding the evening of the year. See August, 19, 1853 (" The day is an epitome of the year.")

After all these rains
 the crickets chirp with a still 
more autumnal sound.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts Last 30 Days.

The week ahead in Henry’s journal

The week ahead in Henry’s journal
A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy.
"A stone fruit. Each one yields me a thought." ~ H. D. Thoreau, March 28, 1859


I sit on this rock
wrestling with the melody
that possesses me.