How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact! suggesting what worlds remain to be unveiled. April 19 1852
Was awakened in the night to a strain of music dying away, — passing travellers singing. My being was so expanded and infinitely and divinely related for a brief season that I saw how unexhausted, how almost wholly unimproved, was man’s capacity for a divine life. April 19, 1856
The guns are firing and bells ringing April 19, 1855
The guns were fired and the bells rung to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of a nation's liberty. April 19, 1852
fire guns and ring bells
anniversary of the
nation's liberty.
Walden is clear of ice. The ice left it yesterday, then, the 18th. April 19, 1852
To-day you can find arrowheads, for every stone is washed bright in the rain.
To-day is the day
you can find arrowheads
washed bright in the rain.
April 19, 1852
Within a few days the warblers have begun to come. They are of every hue. Nature made them to show her colors with. There are as many as there are colors and shades.
Nature made warblers
to show every hue and shade.
The warblers now come.
April 19, 1854
Warblers – every hue.
They come as many as there
are colors and shades
It has a moderate-sized black head and neck, a white breast, and seems dark-brown above, with a white spot on the side of the head, not reaching to the out side, from base of mandibles, and another, perhaps, on the end of the wing, with some black there. . . . I think it is the smallest duck I ever saw. Floating buoyantly asleep on the middle of Walden Pond. Is it not a female of the buffle-headed or spirit duck? April 19, 1855
I think it is the smallest duck I ever saw. Floating buoyantly asleep on the middle of Walden Pond.
Little duck asleep
in the middle of the pond,
head on its back.
A partridge drums. April 19, 1855
Toward night, hear a partridge drum. You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll.
Hear a beat or two
far apart with time to say,
"There is a partridge"
Hear the field sparrow sing on his dry upland, it being a warm day, and see the small blue butterfly hovering over the dry leaves.
Small blue butterfly
hovering over dry leaves
it being a warm day.
April 19, 1860
Another sudden change in the wind to northeast and a freshness with some mist from the sea at 3.30 P. M. April 19, 1856
To see the larger and wilder birds, you must go forth in the great storms like this.To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth. April 19 1852
That last flock of geese yesterday is still in my eye. After hearing their clangor, looking southwest, we saw them just appearing over a dark pine wood, in an irregular waved line, one abreast of the other, as it were breasting the air and pushing it before them. It made you think of the streams of Cayster, etc., etc. They carry weight, such a weight of metal in the air. Their dark waved outline as they disappear. The grenadiers of the air. Man pygmifies himself at sight of these inhabitants of the air. These stormy days they do not love to fly; they alight in some retired marsh or river. From their lofty pathway they can easily spy out the most extensive and retired swamp. How many there must be, that one or more flocks are seen to go over almost every farm in New England in the spring. April 19, 1852
.I hear a faint honk and, looking up, see going over the river, within fifty rods, thirty-two geese in the form of a hay-hook, only two in the hook, and they are at least six feet apart. Probably the whole line is twelve rods long. At least three hundred have passed over Concord, or rather within the breadth of a mile, this spring (perhaps twice as many); for I have seen or heard of a dozen flocks, and the two I counted had about thirty each. . . . [Rice] thinks that a flock of geese will sometimes stop for a wounded one to get well. April 19, 1855
At Fair Haven Pond I see, half a mile off, eight large water-fowl, . . .at length inclined to the opinion that they were geese. At 5.30, being on the Common, I saw a small flock of geese going over northeast. Being reminded of the birds of the morning and their number, I looked again and found that there were eight of them, and probably they were the same I had seen. April 19, 1858
A shad frog [(rana halecina)] on the dry grass. April 19, 1855
I find that my Rana halecina spawn in the house is considerably further advanced than that left in the meadows. The latter is not only deeper beneath the surface now, on account of the rain, but has gathered dirt from the water, so that the jelly itself is now plainly seen; and some of it has been killed, probably by frost, being exposed at the surface. I hear the same tut tut tut, probably of the halecina, still there, though not so generally as before. April 19, 1858
As I go up the riverside, I see a male marsh hawk hunting. He skims along exactly over the edge of the water, on the meadowy side, not more than three or four feet from the ground and winding with the shore, looking for frogs, for in such a tortuous line do the frogs sit. They probably know about what time to expect his visits, being regularly decimated. Particular hawks farm particular meadows. It must be easy for him to get a breakfast. Far as I can see with a glass, he is still tilting this way and that over the water-line. April 19, 1858
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 © 2009-2017
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