Now the springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods

May 22.

5.30 a. m. — Up Assabet.  

May 22, 2019

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

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

First observe the creak of crickets. See May 22, 1853 ("The crickets now first are generally heard.") See also May 24, 1857 ("Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer with his everlasting strain."); June 4, 1857 (" One thing that chiefly distinguishes this season from three weeks ago is that fine serene undertone or earth-song as we go by sunny banks and hillsides, the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity.") andA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in Spring

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 Arrival of the Eastern Wood Pewee

May 22.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 22

Turning round, I am

surprised one more time by the

beauty of the world.

Springing foliage

lights up the landscape like a

sunlight on the woods.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. 

Springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods

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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