Suddenly comes the gust,

June 19.

June 19, 2020

A thunder-shower in the north. 

Will it strike us? How impressive this artillery of the heavens! It rises higher and higher. At length the thunder seems to roll quite across the sky and all round the horizon, even where there are no clouds, and I row homeward in haste. 

The top of the swamp white oak in Merrick's pasture with its rich shade of green seems incrusted with light. 

Now by magic the skirts of the cloud are gathered about us, and it shoots forward over our head, and the rain comes at a time and place which baffles all our calculations. 

Suddenly comes the gust, and the big drops slanting from the north, and the birds fly as if rudderless, and the trees bow and are wrenched. It rains against the windows like hail and is blown over the roofs like steam or smoke. It runs down the large elm at Holbrook's and shatters the house near by. 

Soon silver puddles shine in the streets. This the first rain of consequence for at least three weeks.

June 19, 2014

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1854

Suddenly comes the gust. See June 16, 1860 ("Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.”); June 29, 1860 (“[T]here is a sudden burst from it with a remarkably strong, gusty wind, and the rain for fifteen minutes falls in a blinding deluge. The roof of the depot shed is taken off. . . I think I never saw it rain so hard.”) 

Big drops slanting from the north, and the birds fly as if rudderless See October 27, 1851("The strong northwest wind blows the damp snow along almost horizontally. The birds fly about as if seeking shelter. ")

June 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 19

The rain comes at a 

time and place that baffles all

our calculations.

Suddenly the gust

big drops slanting from the north –

birds fly rudderless.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Suddenly comes the gust. 

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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