In the morning sun

April 27

April 27, 2024,  7:28AM

7 A. M. – To Cliffs. 

Equisetum arvense on the railroad; and may have been two or three days did not look. 

I am at length convinced of the increased freshness (green or yellow) of the willow bark in the spring. Some a clear yellow, others a delightful liquid green. The bark peels well now; how long? 

The rain of last night is helping to bring down the oak leaves. 

The [] thrush afar, so superior a strain to that of other birds. I was doubting if it would affect me as of yore, but it did measurably. I did not believe there could be such differences. This is the gospel according to the [] thrush. He makes a sabbath out of a week-day. I could go to hear him, could buy a pew in his church. Did he ever practice pulpit eloquence? He is right on the slavery question. 

The brown thrasher, too, is along. 

I find a thread like stamen now between the nutlets of the callitriche- probably three or four days. Some creature appears to have eaten this plant. 

The yellow redpolls still numerous; sing chill lill lill lill lill lill.

The meadow-sweet and sweet-fern are beginning to leaf, and the currant in garden.

Stand on Cliffs about 7 a.m. Through a warm mistiness I see the waters with their reflections in the morning sun, while the wood thrush and huckleberry-bird, etc., are heard, — an unprofaned hour. 

I hear the black and white creeper's note, — seeser seeser seeser se. 

What a shy fellow my hermit thrush! 

I hear the beat of a partridge and the spring hoot of an owl, now at 7 a.m. 

Hear a faint sort of oven-bird's (?) note. 

. . .

Misfortunes occur only when a man is false to his Genius. You cannot hear music and noise at the same time.

. . .

It is remarkable that the rise and fall of Walden, though unsteady, and whether periodical or merely occasional, are not completed but after many years. I have observed one rise and part of two falls. It attains its maximum slowly and surely, though un-steadily. It is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether periodical or not, requires many years for its accomplishment, and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence it will again be as low as I have ever known. 

The Salix alba begins to leaf, and the catkins are three quarters of an inch long. 

The balm-of-Gilead is in bloom, about one and a half or two inches long, and some hang down straight. 

Quite warm to-day. In the afternoon the wind changed to east, and apparently the cool air from the sea condensed the vapor in our atmosphere, making us think it would rain every moment; but it did not till midnight.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 27, 1854

I am at length convinced of the increased freshness (green or yellow) of the willow bark in the spring. See March 25, 1854 ("Willow osiers near Mill Brook mouth I am almost certain have acquired a fresher color; at least they surprise me at a distance by their green passing through yellowish to red at top."); . February 24, 1855 ("You will often fancy that they look brighter before the spring has come, and when there has been no change in them"); March 2, 1860 ("This phenomenon, whether referable to a change in the condition of the twig or to the spring air and light, or even to our imaginations, is not the less a real phenomenon, affecting us annually at this season. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Osier in Winter and early Spring

In the morning sun. See September 13, 1851("The morning is not pensive like the evening, but joyous and youthful,"); July 18, 1851 ("It is a test question affecting the youth of a person , — Have you knowledge of the morning? Do you sympathize with that season of nature? Are you abroad early, brushing the dews aside ? "); June 13, 1852 ("All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes"); August 31, 1852 ("Morning is full of promise and vigor. Evening is pensive."); March 22, 1853 ("As soon as these spring mornings arrive in which the birds sing, I am sure to be an early riser.. . .expecting the dawn in so serene and joyful and expectant a mood."); February 25, 1859 ("Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, — if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you,— know that the morning and spring of your life are past.")

Black and white creeper's note. , , ,.Hear a faint sort of oven-bird's  note.   See April 27, 1855 ("The black and white creepers running over the trunks or main limbs of red maples and uttering their fainter oven-bird—like notes."); May 3, 1852. ("That oven-birdish note which I heard here on May 1st I now find to have been uttered by the black and white warbler or creeper. He has a habit of looking under the branches.")   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Black and White Creeper

The yellow redpolls still numerous; sing chill lill lill lill lill lill. See  April 9, 1854 ("Saw several more redpolls with their rich, glowing yellow breasts by the causeway sides."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow Redpoll ( Palm) Warbler

The meadow-sweet and sweet-fern are beginning to leaf, and the currant in garden. See  April 24, 1860 (The meadow-sweet and hardhack have begun to leaf);  April 26, 1860 ("Sweet-fern (that does not flower) leafing"); April 22, 1855 ("The black currant is just begun to expand leaf — probably yesterday elsewhere -a little earlier than the red.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Leaf-Out

The Salix alba begins to leaf. See April 24, 1855 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf."); April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape.")

I was doubting if it would affect me as of yore, but it did measurably. . .What a shy fellow my hermit thrush! See  April 18, 1854. ("Was surprised to see a wagtail thrush."); April 21, 1855 (" It affects us as a part of our unfallen selves.”) and  note to April 24, 1856 ("Behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches.") See also   A Book of the Seasons , by Henry Thoreau, Early Spring: The Arrival of the Hermit Thrush


You cannot hear music and noise at the same time. Compare November 20, 1851 ("It is often said that melody can be heard farther than noise, and the finest melody farther than the coarsest. I think there is truth in this, and that accordingly those strains of the piano which reach me here in my attic stir me so much more.")

Rise and fall of Walden. See December 5, 1852 ("This great rise of [Walden] pond after an interval of many years, and the water standing at this great height for a year or more, kills the shrubs and trees about its edge, — pitch pines, birches, alders, aspens, etc., — and, falling again, leaves an unobstructed shore"); November 26, 1858 (“Walden is very low, compared with itself for some years. . . ., and what is remarkable, I find that not only Goose Pond also has fallen correspondingly within a month, but even the smaller pond-holes only four or five rods over, such as Little Goose Pond, shallow as they are. I begin to suspect, therefore, that this rise and fall extending through a long series of years is not peculiar to the Walden system of ponds, but is true of ponds generally, and perhaps of rivers”) See also Walden ("The pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or not, and within what period, nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to know. It is commonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer, though not corresponding to the general wet and dryness. I can remember when it was a foot or two lower, and also when it was at least five feet higher, than when I lived by it. . . . This makes a difference of level, at the outside, of six or seven feet.") And see R. Primack, Tracing Water Levels at Walden Pond. (2016); Walden Pond - Water Level Changes (2018)

In the afternoon the wind changed to east. . . making us think it would rain every moment; but it did not till midnight. See April 27, 1857 ("It is a true April morning with east wind, the sky overcast with wet-looking clouds, and already some drops have fallen. It will surely rain to-day, but when it will begin in earnest and how long it will last, none can tell."); See also April 22, 1856 ("It has rained two days and nights, and now the sun breaks out, but the wind is still easterly, and the storm probably is not over . . . These rain-storms -- this is the third day of one -- characterize 'the season, and belong rather to winter than to summer."); April 26, 1859 ("This is the last of the rains (spring rains !) which invariably followed an east wind."); April 28, 1856(" On our return the wind changed to easterly, and I felt the cool, fresh sea-breeze.");   April 29, 1856 ("It was quite warm when I first came out, but about 3 P. M. I felt a fresh easterly wind, and saw quite a mist in the distance produced by it, a sea-turn . . .  Your first warning of it may be the seeing a thick mist on all the hills and in the horizon."); April 30, 1856 ("at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn . . .and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Sea-turn

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

An unprofaned hour –

waters with their reflections

in the morning sun.

The beat of a partridge

and spring hoot of an owl now

at 7 a.m.

April 27, 2014

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, in the morning sun.

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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