The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
Snow lit by the sun
blows like the spray on a beach
in this northwest wind.
This cold afternoon
I inhale the clear bright air --
the sky undimmed blue.
The fog is so thick
we cannot see the engine
almost upon us.
From the road look back
through the sun to white-pine tops
this soft afternoon.
This crystalline snow
lies up so light and downy --
semitransparent.
The birds' nests revealed
in the blueberry bushes
by snow-balls they hold.
crowded thoughts
under a clear blue sky
the spaceship cloud drifts by
unnoticed
February 16, 2019
This afternoon there is a clear, bright air, which, though cold and windy, I love to inhale. The sky is a much fairer and undimmed blue than usual. The surface of the snow which fell last night is coarse like bran, with shining flakes. February 16, 1852
I see the steam-like snow-dust curling up and careering along over the fields. As I walk the bleak Walden road, it blows up over the highest drifts in the west, lit by the westering sun like the spray on a beach before the northwest wind. February 16, 1852
For the last month the weather has been remarkably changeable; hardly three days together alike. February 16, 1854
The fog is so thick we cannot see the engine till it is almost upon us, and then its own steam, hugging the earth, greatly increases the mist. February 16, 1855
It is the warmest day at 12 M. since the 22d of December, when the thermometer stood at 50°. To-day it is at 44. February 16, 1856
A wonderfully warm day (the third one); about 2 p.m., thermometer in shade 58. February 16, 1857
From the entrance of the Mill road I look back through the sun, this soft afternoon, to some white pine tops near Jenny Dugan’s. Their flattish boughs rest stratum above stratum like a cloud, a green mackerel sky, hardly reminding me of the concealed earth so far beneath. They are like a flaky crust of the earth, a more ethereal, terebinthine, evergreen earth. February 16, 1859
Also all the birds' nests in the blueberry bushes are revealed, by the great snow-balls they hold. February 16, 1860
In fact, this crystalline snow lies up so light and downy that it evidently admits more light than usual, and the surface is more white and glowing for it. It is semitransparent. This is especially the case with the snow lying upon rocks or musquash-houses, which is elevated and brought between you and the light. It is partially transparent, like alabaster. February 16, 1860
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 © 2009-2022
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