A very hot day, a bathing day. Warm days about this.
Corn in blossom these days.
P. M. — To Hubbard Bath.
P. M. — To Hubbard Bath.
July 20, 2020
A muttering thunder-cloud in northwest gradually rising and with its advanced guard hiding in the sun and now and then darting forked lightning.
The wind rising ominously also drives me home again.
At length down it comes upon the thirsty herbage, beating down the leaves with grateful, tender violence and slightly cooling the air.
At length down it comes upon the thirsty herbage, beating down the leaves with grateful, tender violence and slightly cooling the air.
How soon it sweeps over and we see the flash in the southeast!
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1854
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1854
Corn in blossom these days. See July 12, 1851 ("The earliest corn is beginning to show its tassels now, and I scent it as I walk, — its peculiar dry scent."); July 27, 1852 ("I now perceive the peculiar scent of the corn-fields. The corn is just high enough, and this hour is favorable. I should think the ears had hardly set yet.")
We see the flash in the southeast. See July 20, 1851 (“A thunder-shower in the night . . .the lightning filled the damp air with light, like some vast glow-worm in the fields of ether opening its wings.”) Compare July 23, 1854 ("See a thunder-cloud coming up in northwest, but as I walk and wind in the woods, lose the points of compass and cannot tell whether it is travelling this way or not. At length the sun is obscured by its advance guard, but, as so often, the rain comes, leaving thunder and lightning behind.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Lightning
Darting forked lightning
wind rising ominously
drives me home again.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Darting forked lightning
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
tinyurl.com/hdt-540720
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