Bright moonlight nights.

December 15.

Looking from my window these bright moonlight nights, the ground being still bare, the whole landscape — fields, road, and roof — has a wintry aspect, as if covered with snow. 

It is the frost.

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

These bright moonlight nights. See December 10, 1856 ("the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light."); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December Moonlight

The whole landscape . . . has a wintry aspect, as if covered with snow. See November 12, 1851 ("The moonlight reflected from (apparently) the fine frost crystals on the withered grass"); November 12, 1853 ("The meadows, with perhaps a little mist on them, look as if covered with frost in the moonlight.");  November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight.")

See also: Li Po :(Thoughts in Night Quiet):

Seeing moonlight here at my bed,

and thinking it’s frost on the ground,

I look up, gaze at the mountain moon,

then back, dreaming of my old home

and Issa:

in addition

to my solitude

frost on the window

December 15.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 15

The bare landscape looks

as if covered with snow on

these bright moonlit nights.

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 © 2009-2023

https://tinyurl.com/hdt531215