The Saxonville, factory-bell sounds o'er the woods. That sound perchance it is that whets my vision. . .
.
Dear to me to lie in, this sand;
fit to preserve the bones of a race
for thousands of years to come.
And this is my home,
my native soil; and I am
a New-Englander.
Of thee, O earth,
are my bone
and sinew made.
To thee,
O sun,
am I brother.
To this dust
my body will gladly return
as to its origin.
Here have I
my habitat
I am of thee.
November 7, 1851
November 7, 2023
And this is my home
my native soil and I am
a New-Englander.
A clear cold morning
walking with hands in pockets --
the sun far southward.
This cold morning notes
of small birds sound like a nail
dropped on an anvil.
November 7, 1853
like a nail on an anvil
in now leafless woods.
November 7, 1853
The view contracted--
my world and life simplified
by the misty rain.
November 7, 1855
The world and my life
are simplified this still dark
mizzling afternoon.
November 7, 2021
Another drizzling day, — as fine a mist as can fall. I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon; my walk or voyage is more suggestive and profitable than in bright weather. The view is contracted by the misty rain, the water is perfectly smooth, and the stillness is favorable to reflection. I am more open to impressions, more sensitive (not calloused or indurated by sun and wind), as if in a chamber still. My thoughts are concentrated; I am all compact. The solitude is real, too, for the weather keeps other men at home. This mist is like a roof and walls over and around, and I walk with a domestic feeling. The sound of a wagon going over an unseen bridge is louder than ever, and so of other sounds. I am compelled to look at near objects. All things have a soothing effect; the very clouds and mists brood over me. My power of observation and contemplation is much increased. My attention does not wander. The world and my life are simplified. November 7, 1855
A clear, cold, as well as frosty, morning. The sun now rises far southward. I have to walk with my hands in my pockets. I see westward the earliest sunlight on the reddish oak leaves and the pines. November 7, 1853
The notes of one or two small birds, this cold morning, in the now comparatively leafless woods, sound like a nail dropped on an anvil. November 7, 1853
This has been another Indian-summer day. Thermometer 58° at noon. November 7, 1857
Birds are pretty rare now. I hear a few tree sparrows in one place on the trees and bushes near the river, — a clear, chinking chirp and a half-strain,— a jay at a distance; and see a nuthatch flit with a ricochet flight across the river, and hear his gnah half uttered when he alights. November 7, 1855
The nuthatch is another bird of the fall which I hear these days and for a long time, — apparently ever since the young birds grew up. November 7, 1858
The very earth is like a house shut up for the winter, and I go knocking about it in vain. But just then I heard a chickadee on a hemlock, and was inexpressibly cheered to find that an old acquaintance was yet stirring about the premises, and was, I was assured, to be there all winter. All that is evergreen in me revived at once. November 7, 1858
Going up the lane beyond Farmer’s, I was surprised to see fly up from the white, stony road, two snow buntings, which alighted again close by, one on a large rock, the other on the stony ground. They had pale-brown or tawny touches on the white breast, on each side of the head, and on the top of the head, in the last place with some darker color. Had light-yellowish bills. They sat quite motionless within two rods, and allowed me to approach within a rod, as if conscious that the white rocks, etc., concealed them. It seemed as if they were attracted to surfaces of the same color with themselves, — white and black (or quite dark) and tawny. One squatted flat, if not both. Their soft rippling notes as they went off reminded me [of] the northeast snow-storms to which ere long they are to be an accompaniment. November 7, 1858
It cleared up this forenoon. I leave my boat opposite the Hemlocks. I see the cold sunlight from some glade between the clouds falling on distant oak woods, now nearly bare, and as I glance up the hill between them. seeing the bare but bright hillside beyond, I think, Now we are left to the hemlocks and pines with their silvery light, to the bare trees and withered grass. November 7, 1858
The mayflower leaves we saw there, and the Viola pedata in blossom. November 7, 1851
This has been another Indian-summer day. Thermometer 58° at noon. November 7, 1857
Apple and alder leaves thickly strew the ground. From amid the leaves anywhere within the circumference of the tree, I draw forth the fruit, all wet and glossy, nibbled by rabbits and hollowed out by crickets, but still with the bloom on it and at least as ripe and well kept, if not better than those in barrels. November 7, 1858
The white birches lose their lower leaves first, and now their tops show crescents or cones of bright-yellow (spiring flames) leaves, some of the topmost even green still. November 7, 1855
I see a painted tortoise swimming under water, and to my surprise another afterward out on a willow trunk this dark day. It is long since I have seen one of any species except the insculpta. They must have begun to keep below and go into winter quarters about three weeks ago. November 7, 1855
A muskrat-house on the top of a rock, too thin round the sides for a passage beneath, yet a small cavity at top, which makes me think that they use them merely as a sheltered perch above water. They seize thus many cores to build on, as a hummock left by the ice. (Red clover.) The wads of which this muskrat house was composed were about six inches by four, rounded and massed at one end, flaking off at the other, and were composed chiefly of a little green (for the most part withered dark-brown) moss-like weed, and had the strong odor of the fresh-water sponge and conferva. November 7, 1853
Opened a muskrat-house nearly two feet high, but there was no hollow to it. Apparently they do not form that part yet. November 7, 1855
You will sometimes see a sudden wave flow along a puny ditch of a brook, inundating all its shores, when a musquash is making his escape beneath. He soon plunges into some hole in the bank under water, and all is still again. November 7, 1857
I pass a musquash-house, apparently begun last night. The first mouthfuls of weeds were placed between some small button-bush stems which stood amid the pads and pontederia, for a support and to prevent their being washed away. Opposite, I see some half concealed amid the bleached phalaris grass (a tall coarse grass), or, in some places, the blue-joint. November 7, 1858
Minott adorns whatever part of nature he touches; whichever way he walks he transfigures the earth for me. If a common man speaks of Walden Pond to me, I see only a shallow, dull-colored body of water without reflections or peculiar color, but if Minott speaks of it, I see the green water and reflected hills at once, for he has been there. I hear the rustle of the leaves from woods which he goes through. November 7, 1857
The sun sets while we are perched on a high rock in the north of Weston. It soon grows finger cold. November 7, 1851
At Walden are three reflections of the bright full (or nearly) moon, one moon and two sheens further off. November 7, 1851
At Walden are three reflections of the bright full (or nearly) moon, one moon and two sheens further off. November 7, 1851
November 7, 2021
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Young Birds
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bells and Whistles
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Moods
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 © 2009-2021
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