Now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless.

November 27. 

Now a man will eat his heart, if ever, now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless, and we have the coldness of winter without the variety of ice and snow; but methinks the variety and compensation are in the stars now. How bright they are now by contrast with the dark earth!

The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk, but the 21st of next month the day will be shorter still by about twenty-five minutes. In December there will be less light than in any month in the year.

It is too cold to-day to use a paddle; the water freezes on the handle and numbs my fingers.

I observe the Lycopodium lucidulum still of a fresh, shining green.

Checkerberries and partridge-berries are both numerous and obvious now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 27, 1853

Now a man will eat his heart, if ever, now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless. .See November 1, 1852 ("In November, a man will eat his heart, if in any month. "); November 13, 1851 ("Such a day as will almost oblige a man to eat his own heart. A day in which you must hold on to life by your teeth."); November 14, 1858 ("I walk on frozen ground two thirds covered with a sugaring of dry snow, and this strong and cutting northwest wind makes the oak leaves rustle dryly enough to set your heart on edge.");November 25, 1857 (“November Eatheart, — is that the name of it? Not only the fingers cease to do their office, but there is often a benumbing of the faculties generally. You can hardly screw up your courage to take a walk when all is thus tightly locked or frozen up and so little is to be seen in field or wood. ”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Days ; 

How bright [the stars]. See November 13, 1851 ("Just in proportion to the outward poverty is the inward wealth. In cold weather fire burns with a clearer flame."); November 22, 1860 ("I rejoice in the bare, bleak, hard, and barren-looking surface of the tawny pastures, the firm outline of the hills, and the air so bracing and wholesome . . . Summer is gone with all its infinite wealth, and still nature is genial to man. Still he beholds the same inaccessible beauty around him."); January 29, 1854 ("Tonight I feel it stinging cold . . . it bites my ears and face, but the stars shine all the brighter.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, It is glorious November weather

The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk, See November 28, 1859 ("We make a good deal of the early twilights of these November days, they make so large a part of the afternoon.”); December 5, 1853 ("Now for the short days and early twilight. . . The sun goes down behind a low cloud, and the world is darkened."); December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night") December 11, 1854 ("The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day.”)

It is too cold to-day to use a paddle. See November 24, 1860 (“Fingers are so benumbed that you cannot open your jack-knife.”)

I observe the Lycopodium lucidulum still of a fresh, shining green. See note to November 27, 1859 ("This wood-lot, especially at the northwest base of the hill, is extensively carpeted with the Lycopodium complanatum and also much dendroideum and Chimaphila umbellata ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums

Checkerberries and partridge-berries are both numerous and obvious now. See November 16, 1850 (“The partridge-berry leaves checker the ground on the side of moist hillsides in the woods. Are they not properly called checker-berries ?”) ; November 19, 1850 ("Now that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen . . . the partridge-berry and checkerberry, and winter-green leaves even, are more conspicuous.”);    cember 3, 1853 ("The still green Mitchella repens and checkerberry in shelter, both with fruit"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Partridge-berry (Mitchella Repens)

Note "Checkerberry" is another name for American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). See Checkerberry cum Wintergreen. What HDT calls “wintergreen” is Chimaphila umbellata, a/k/a pipsissewa,.See July 3, 1852 ("The Chimaphila umbellata, wintergreen, must have been in blossom some time.”);  November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”)

November 27. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 27

The bare barren earth

    cheerless without ice and snow  –   

but how bright the stars.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The earth is bare, barren and cheerless.

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

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