5.30 a. m. — Up Assabet. Now begins the slightly sultryish morning air into which you awake early to hear the faint buzz of a fly or hum of other insect. The teeming air, deep and hollow, filled with some spiritus, pregnant as not in winter or spring, with room for imps, — good angels and bad, — many chambers in it, infinite sounds. I partially awake the first time for a month at least. As if the cope of the sky lifted, the heat stretched and swelled it as a bladder, and it remained permanently higher and more infinite for the summer. Suggesting that the night has not been, with its incidents.
10 a. m. — To Fair Haven by boat. I rest in the orchard, doubtful whether to sit in shade or sun. Now the springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods. I am first attracted and surprised when I look round and off to Conantum, at the smooth, lawn-like green fields . The air so clear — as not in summer — makes all things shine, as if all surfaces had been washed by the rains of spring and were not yet soiled or begrimed or dulled.
You see even to the mountains clearly. The grass so short and fresh, the tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape, the birds now most musical, the sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health, — all these things make earth now a paradise.
How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!
At Lee's Cliff. --First observe the creak of crickets. It is quite general amid these rocks. The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. It is only late for all trivial and hurried pursuits. It suggests a wisdom mature, never late, being above all temporal considerations, which possesses the coolness and maturity of autumn amidst the aspiration of spring and the heats of summer. They sit aside from the revolution of the seasons. Their strain is unvaried as Truth.
Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. In their song they ignore our accidents. They are not concerned about the news. A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal.
I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu, the first syllable in a different and higher key emphasized, — all very sweet and naive and innocent.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 22, 1854
I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu. See May 22, 1853 ("The wood pewee’s warm note is heard") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee and note to May 26, 1852
The tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape, the birds now most musical — all these things make earth now a paradise. See May 17, 1852 (“The sun comes out and lights up the tender expanding leaves, and all nature is full of light and fragrance, and the birds sing without ceasing, and the earth is a fairyland. ”); May 18, 1852 (“this tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date.”); May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.”)
How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth! See May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”); October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape”); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting
At Lee's Cliff. --First observe the creak of crickets. It is quite general amid these rocks. The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. It is only late for all trivial and hurried pursuits. It suggests a wisdom mature, never late, being above all temporal considerations, which possesses the coolness and maturity of autumn amidst the aspiration of spring and the heats of summer. They sit aside from the revolution of the seasons. Their strain is unvaried as Truth.
Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. In their song they ignore our accidents. They are not concerned about the news. A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal.
I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu, the first syllable in a different and higher key emphasized, — all very sweet and naive and innocent.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 22, 1854
I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu. See May 22, 1853 ("The wood pewee’s warm note is heard") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee and note to May 26, 1852
The tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape, the birds now most musical — all these things make earth now a paradise. See May 17, 1852 (“The sun comes out and lights up the tender expanding leaves, and all nature is full of light and fragrance, and the birds sing without ceasing, and the earth is a fairyland. ”); May 18, 1852 (“this tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date.”); May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.”)
How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth! See May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”); October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape”); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting
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