A fine ripple and sparkle on the pond, seen through the mist...

Sunset, June 16, 2014

June 16.  As the sun went down last night, round and red in a damp misty atmosphere, so now it rises in the same manner, though there is no dense fog.

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Sunrise June 16, 2014

Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us. Thus it is almost invariably, methinks, with thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us.  

The warmer, or at least drier, weather has now prevailed about a fortnight. Once or twice the sun has gone down red, shorn of his beams. There have been showers all around us, but nothing to mention here yet. 

Panicled cornel well out on Heywood Peak. 

There is a cool east wind, — and has been afternoons for several days, — which has produced a very thick haze or a fog.  

There is a fine ripple and sparkle on the pond, seen through the mist.

June 16, 2014

The Rosa nitida grows along the edge of the ditches, the half-open flowers showing the deepest rosy tints, so glowing that they make an evening or twilight of the surrounding afternoon, seeming to stand in the shade or twilight. Already the bright petals of yesterday's flowers are thickly strewn along on the black mud at the bottom of the ditch. 

• The R. nitida, the earlier (?), with its narrow shiny leaves and prickly stem and its moderate-sized rose pink petals. 
• The R. lucida, with its broader and duller leaves, but larger and perhaps deeper-colored and more purple petals, perhaps yet higher scented, and its great yellow centre of stamens. 
• The smaller, lighter, but perhaps more delicately tinted R. rubiginosa. 

One and all drop their petals the second day. I bring home the buds of the three ready to expand at night, and the next day they perfume my chamber.

Add to these the white lily (just begun), also the swamp-pink, and probably morning-glory, and the great orchis, and mountain laurel (now in prime), and perhaps we must say that the fairest flowers are now to be found. 

It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. It may be plucked when the spike is only half opened, and will open completely and keep perfectly fresh in a pitcher more than a week. 

Do I not live in a garden, — in paradise? I can go out each morning before breakfast — I do — and gather these flowers with which to perfume my chamber where I read and write, all day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 16, 1854

Thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us. See June 15, 1860 ("A thunder-shower in the north goes down the Merrimack."); June 16, 1860 (" Thunder-showers show themselves about 2 P.M. in the west, but split at sight of Concord and go past on each side")

There is a cool east wind, — and has been afternoons for several days, — which has produced a very thick haze or a fog. See June 23, 1854 ("There has been a foggy haze, dog-day-like, for perhaps ten days"); See also April 30, 1856 ("Early in the afternoon, or between one and four, the wind changes . . . 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

I bring home the buds of the three ready to expand at night, and the next day they perfume my chamber. See June 23, 1852 ("I take the wild rose buds to my chamber and put them in a pitcher of water, and they will open there the next day, and a single flower will perfume a room ;and then, after a day, the petals drop off, and new buds open."); June 15, 1853 ("I bring home the[wild rose] buds ready to expand, put them in a pitcher of water, and the next morning they open and fill my chamber with fragrance.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

 It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. See June 9, 1854 ("Find the great fringed orchis out apparently two or three days.Two are almost fully out, two or three only budded.A large spike of peculiarly delicate pale-purple flowers growing in the luxuriant and shady swamp . . .I think that no other but myself in Concord annually finds it. . . . It lifts its delicate spike amid the hellebore and ferns in the deep shade of the swamp. "); June 19, 1852 (" The orchis keeps well. One put in my hat this morning, and carried all day, will last fresh a day or two at home"); June 21, 1852 (" The purple orchis is a good flower to bring home. It will keep fresh many days, and its buds open at last in a pitcher of water") See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The purple fringed orchids

My chamber where I read and write, all day. See H Daniel Peck, Thoreau's Morning Work (noting that Thoreau "'set aside regular intervals, usually in the morning, for [the Journal's] composition, and typically wrote several days' entries at a sitting, working from notes that he accumulated during his [after-noon] walks' of the previous several days") See also  July 23, 1851 (" If I should reverse the usual, — go forth and saunter in the fields all the forenoon, then sit down in my chamber in the afternoon, which it is so unusual for me to do,-it would be like a new season to me, and the novelty of it (would) inspire me. . . .Is the literary man to live always or chiefly sitting in a chamber through which nature enters by a window only? What is the use of the summer? . . . I expand more surely in my chamber, as far as expression goes . . . but here outdoors is the place to store up influences.")

Note. Today HDT extends his comments on the extradition of Anthony Burns:

But what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them. When we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both rulers and ruled are without principle? The remembrance of the baseness of politicians spoils my walks. My thoughts are murder to the State; I endeavor in vain to observe nature; my thoughts involuntarily go plotting against the State. I trust that all just men will conspire.

We have used up all our inherited freedom . . . It is not an era of repose. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them . . . Why will men be such fools as to trust to lawyers for a moral reform? I do not believe that there is a judge in this country prepared to decide by the principle that a law is immoral and therefore of no force.

See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854 and "Slavery in Massachusetts,"

June 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 16

Thus it is methinks

with thunder-clouds in the east –

they do not reach us.

It is eight days since 

I plucked the great orchis still 

fresh in my pitcher.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A fine ripple and sparkle on the Pond

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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