The rich crimson leaf-buds of the grape are rapidly unfolding, scattered along the vine; and the various leaves unfolding are flower-like, and taken together are more interesting than any flower.
Quite warm; cows already stand in water in the shade of the bridge.
Look into several red-wing blackbirds' nests which are now being built, but no eggs yet. They are generally hung between two twigs, say of button-bush. I notice at one nest what looks like a tow string securely tied about a twig at each end about six inches apart, left loose in the middle. It was not a string, but I think a strip of milkweed pod, etc., maybe a foot long and very strong. How remarkable that this bird should have found out the strength of this, which I was so slow to find out!
Land at Conantum by the red cherry grove above Arrowhead Field.
It is a splendid day, so clear and bright and fresh; the warmth of the air and the bright tender verdure putting forth on all sides make an impression of luxuriance and genialness, so perfectly fresh.
A sweet scent fills the air from the expanding leafets or some other source.
The earth is all fragrant as one flower. And bobolinks tinkle in the air. Nature now is perfectly genial to man.
I notice the dark shadow of Conantum Cliff from the water. Why do I notice it at this season particularly? Is it because a shadow is more grateful to the sight now that warm weather has come? Or is there anything in the contrast between the rich green of the grass and the cool dark shade?
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 16, 1854
The earth is all fragrant as one flower . . . See May 16, 1852 ("The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose. A fine, delicious fragrance, which will come to the senses only when it will.")
Nature now is perfectly genial to man. See November 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and. . . Men, too, are disposed to give thanks for the bounties of the year all over the land."); November 22, 1860 ("Summer is gone with all its infinite wealth, and still nature is genial to man. Still he beholds the same inaccessible beauty around him."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature is genial to man (the anthropic principle)
The sessile-leaved bellwort, with three or four delicate pale-green leaves with reflexed edges, on a tender-looking stalk, the single modest-colored flower gracefully drooping, neat, with a fugacious, richly spiced fragrance, facing the ground . . . When you turn up the drooping flower, its petals make a perfect geometrical figure, a six-pointed star.
I notice the dark shadow of Conantum Cliff from the water. Why do I notice it at this season particularly? Is it because a shadow is more grateful to the sight now that warm weather has come? Or is there anything in the contrast between the rich green of the grass and the cool dark shade?
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 16, 1854
The earth is all fragrant as one flower . . . See May 16, 1852 ("The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose. A fine, delicious fragrance, which will come to the senses only when it will.")
Nature now is perfectly genial to man. See November 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and. . . Men, too, are disposed to give thanks for the bounties of the year all over the land."); November 22, 1860 ("Summer is gone with all its infinite wealth, and still nature is genial to man. Still he beholds the same inaccessible beauty around him."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature is genial to man (the anthropic principle)
So clear bright and fresh
the whole earth is one flower
genial to man.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The earth is all fragrant as one flower, genial to man
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
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540516
No comments:
Post a Comment