A Book of the Seasons: May 30 (now is the summer come, moving shadows, waving grass – shelter from the storm; lady's slippers, arethusas and buttercups)

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

May 30.

Strong lights and shades now.

It is a day of shadows,

the leaves have so grown –

and of wind –

A day for shadows

of fast moving clouds over

fields of waving grass.

May 30, 1852

The morning wind blows.

The poem of the world is

uninterrupted.

May 30, 1853

The dog lies with his 

paws hanging over the door-

sill this cool morning.

May 30, 1853

Aster-like flower

a foot high in little squads,

nodding in the wind.

May 30, 1853

The arethusa

shoots up unexpectedly.

It is all color.

May 30, 1854

Perhaps I could write

meditations under a

rock in a shower.

May 30, 1857

The blue sky first seen 

here and there between the clouds 

– the end of a storm.

 May 30, 1857

The turpentine scent

of the ledum in the air

as I walk through it.

May 30, 1858

May 30, 2017

Now is the summer come.

The morning wind forever blows; the poem of the world is uninterrupted, but few are the ears that hear it.  May 30, 1853

Strong lights and shades now.  It is a day of shadows, the leaves have so grown, and of wind. May 30, 1852

A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave. May 30, 1852

The peculiarly tender foliage (yellowish) which began to invest the dark evergreens on the 22d lasts a week or more, growing darker. May 30, 1859

As I look off from Fair Haven I perceive that that . . . the pines are a dirty dark brown, almost purple, and are mostly merged and lost in the deciduous trees. May 30, 1853

The apple trees are about out of blossom. It is but a week they last. May 30, 1852

A breezy, washing day. May 30, 1852

Now is the summer come. May 30, 1852

The white maples, especially those shaped like large bushes, on the banks are now full of foliage, showing the white under sides of the leaves in the wind, and the swamp white oak, having similar silvery under sides to its leaves, and both growing abundantly and prevailing here along the river, make or impart a peculiar flashing light to the scenery in windy weather, all bright, flashing, and cheerful. May 30, 1853

The brown panicles of the June-grass now paint some fields with the color of early summer. May 30, 1860

Is it not summer now when the creak of the crickets begins to be general? May 30, 1855

The bass leaf is now large and handsome. May 30, 1852

Green lice from birches (?) get on my clothes. May 30, 1855

Chestnut oak not yet in bloom, though the black and scarlet are well out in ordinary places. Its young leaves have a reddish-brown tinge. May 30, 1857

The white oak is not out. May 30, 1857

It is remarkable that many beach and chestnut oak leaves, which so recently expanded, have already attained their full size! How they launch themselves forth to the light! How suddenly Nature spreads her umbrellas! How little delay in expanding leaves! They seem to expand before our eyes, like the wings of moths just fallen from the cocoon. May 30, 1857

The young black oak leafets are dark red or reddish, thick and downy; the scarlet oak also are somewhat reddish, thick and downy, or thin and green and little downy, like red oak, but rather more deeply cut; the red oak broad, thin, green and not downy; the white pink-red. May 30, 1857

A strong west wind and much haze. May 30, 1855

Very pleasant to feel the strong, fresh southerly wind from over the water. There are no clouds in the sky, but a high haziness. May 30, 1853

The common blue flag just out at Ball's Hill. May 30, 1853

Yellow clover abundantly out, though the heads are small yet. Are they quite open? May 30, 1856

The yellow water ranunculus by the Corner causeway. May 30, 1852

Buttercups thickly spot the churchyard. May 30, 1857

Comandra umbellata, apparently a day or two. May 30, 1856

Buttonwood flowers now effete; fertile flowers were not brown on the 24th, but were the 28th; say, then, about the 26th. May 30, 1855

Lepidium virginicum, roadside bank at Minott’s. May 30, 1855

The myrica, bayberry, plucked on the 23d, now first sheds pollen in house, the leaf being but little more expanded on the flowering shoot. May 30, 1855

Silvery potentilla, four or five days at least. May 30, 1855\

Senecio in open meadows, say yesterday. May 30, 1855 -- Senecio in bloom. May 30, 1852

Cinquefoil and houstonia cover the ground, mixed with the grass and contrasting with each other. May 30, 1852

The stems of meadow saxifrage are white now. May 30, 1860

Sorrel begins to redden fields. May 30, 1859

Violets everywhere spot the meadows, some more purple, some more lilac. ... Distinguished the Viola palmata in Hubbard's meadow, near the sidesaddle-flowers, which last are just beginning to blossom. May 30, 1852

The last are quite showy flowers when the wind turns them so as to show their under sides. May 30, 1852

The Viola palmata, which is later, and therefore, methinks, fresher than most, is now quite prevalent, one of the most common, in fact, in low ground and a very handsome purple, with more red than usual in its violet. May 30, 1853

The lupine, which I saw almost in blossom a week ago at Plymouth, I hear is in blossom here. May 30, 1852

How many such lupine banks there are! — whose blue you detect many rods off. May 30, 1853

There I found, methinks, minute Specularia perfoliata, with small crenate clasping leaves alternate at some distance apart, on upright stems about three inches high, but apparently fruiting in the bud. May 30, 1853

Also the Silene antirrhina very abundant there. May 30, 1853

White cohosh in bloom May 30, 1852

The cistus out, probably yesterday, a simple and delicate flower, its stamens all swept to one side. It upholds a delicate saffron-golden (?) basin about nine inches from the ground. May 30, 1853

Smilacina stellata. May 30, 1852

The flowers of the sassafras have not such a fragrance as I perceived last year. May 30, 1852

Ladies’ slipper, apparently, May 30, 1855 

The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th. May 30, 1856

Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d; how long? May 30, 1858

The Erigeron bellidifolius is a tender-looking, pale-purple, aster-like flower a foot high in little squads, nodding in the wind on the bare slopes of hill pastures. May 30, 1853

The bulbous arethusa, the most splendid, rich, and high-colored flower thus far, methinks, all flower and color, almost without leaves, and looking much larger than it is, and more conspicuous on account of its intense color. A flower of mark. It appeared two or three times as large as reality when it flashed upon me from the meadow. May 30, 1852

I am surprised to find arethusas abundantly out in Hubbard's Close. . .It is so leafless that it shoots up unexpectedly. It is all color, a little hook of purple flame projecting from the meadow into the air. . . . This high-colored plant shoots up suddenly, all flower, in meadows where it is wet walking. A superb flower. May 30, 1854

I see what I take to be an uncommonly large Uvularia sessilifolia flower, but, looking again, am surprised to find it the Uvularia perfoliata, which I have not found hereabouts before. It is a taller and much more erect plant than the other, with a larger flower, methinks. May 30, 1857

High blueberry flowers are quite conspicuous. May 30, 1852

The fruit of the amelanchier is as big as small peas. I have not noticed any other berry so large yet. May 30, 1852

I see now green high blueberries, and gooseberries in Hubbard's Close, as well as shad-bush berries and strawberries. May 30, 1854

The sumach (glabra) is well under weigh now. May 30, 1852

The narrow- leaved cotton-grass. May 30, 1852

The Equisetum sylvaticum, or wood horse-tail in the meadows. May 30, 1852

The tall pipe-grass (Equisetum uliginosum) . May 30, 1852

Yellow lilies are abundant. May 30, 1852

The Drosera rotundifolia now glistens with its dew at midday, a beautiful object closely examined. May 30, 1852

The Juncus filiformis not out yet, though some panicles are grown nearly half an inch. . . . Perhaps will bloom in a week. May 30, 1860

The Salix tristis generally shows its down now along dry wood-paths. May 30, 1860

No American mountain-ash out. May 30, 1859

Cornus Canadensis out, how long? May 30, 1855

Poison-dogwood has grown three or four inches at ends of last year’s shoots, which are three to six feet from ground. May 30, 1855

Setophaga magnolia May 30, 1855

E. Emerson's Calla palustris out the 27th. May 30, 1859

Eleocharis palustris, R. W. E.'s meadow, not long. May 30, 1859

Hear of linnaea out, the 28th. May 30, 1859

The anemones appear to be nearly gone. May 30, 1852

I saw the Nuphar advena above water and yellow in Shrewsbury the 23d. May 30, 1858

The scheuchzeria is at height or past. May 30, 1859

Ledum, one flower out, . . . It is decidedly leafing also . . . I perceive the turpentine scent of the ledum in the air as I walk through it. May 30, 1858

Blue-stemmed goldenrod is already a foot high. May 30, 1857

I see the geranium and two-leaved Solomon's-seal out, the last abundant. May 30, 1857

The geranium is a delicate flower and be longs especially to shady places under trees and shrubs, — better if about springs, — in by-nooks, so modest. May 30, 1852

The early gnaphaliums are gone to seed, having run up seven or ten inches. May 30, 1852

The field plantain, which I saw in Plymouth a week ago, abundant there. May 30, 1852

The red pyrus by the path, not yet, but probably the same elsewhere.

I do not yet observe a difference between the two kinds of Pyrus arbutifolia, if, indeed, I have compared the two, i. e. my early black and later red-fruited, which last holds on all winter. May 30, 1852

Edward Emerson shows me the nest which he and another discovered. . . .The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one of the flicker. May 30, 1858

On the wall, at the brook behind Cyrus Hosmer’s barn, I start a nighthawk within a rod or two. It alights again on his barn-yard board fence, sitting diagonally. I see the white spot on the edge of its wings as it sits. It flies thence and alights on the ground in his corn-field, sitting flat, but there was no nest under it. This was unusual. Had it not a nest nearby? May 30, 1860

Was it not a whip-poor-will I scared up at the base of a bush in the woods to-day, that went off with a clumsy flight? May 30, 1857

There are young robins in nests. May 30, 1852

A bird's nest in grass, with coffee-colored eggs. May 30, 1852

To what sparrow belong the coffee-colored eggs in Hubbard's field by the brook? May 30, 1852

See bird’s nest on an apple by roadside, seven feet high; one egg. May 30, 1855

Cherry-bird on a cherry; also pecking at the apple blossoms. 1855

Wild cherry on the low shrubs, but not yet the trees, a rummy scent. May 30, 1852

Young bush like black cherries a day or two, on Cliffs and in such favorable places. May 30, 1853

Hear the evergreen forest note, and see probably the bird, — black throat, greenish-yellow or yellowish-green head and back, light-slate (?) wings with two white bars. Is it not the black-throated green warbler? May 30, 1855

I think that there are many chestnut-sided warblers this season. They are pretty tame. One sits within six feet of me, though not still. He is much painted up. May 30, 1857

Hear a familiar warbler not recognized for some years, in the thick copse in Dennis’s Swamp, south of railroad; considerably yellowbird-like (the note).May 30, 1855

When I entered the interior meadow of Gowing's Swamp I heard a slight snort, and found that I had suddenly come upon a woodchuck amid the sphagnum, lambkill, Kalmia glauca, andromeda, cranberry, etc., there. It was only seven feet off, and, being surprised, would not run. . . .He may have thought that no one but he came to Gowing's Swamp these afternoons. May 30, 1859

Andromeda Polifolia by the ditch well out, how long? May 30, 1858

The dwarf andromeda is about out of bloom. Its new shoots from the side of the old stem are an inch or more long. May 30, 1852

On the meadows are large yellow-green patches of ferns beginning to prevail. May 30, 1853

In this dark, cellar-like maple swamp are scattered at pretty regular intervals tufts of green ferns, Osmunda cinnamomea, above the dead brown leaves, broad, tapering fronds, curving over on every side from a compact centre, now three or four feet high. May 30, 1854

The branches or branchlets of the maidenhair fern are so disposed as to form two thirds of a cup around the stem. May 30, 1852

What kind of blackberry did I find in blossom in Hubbard's Swamp? May 30, 1852

High blackberry out. May 30, 1853

A succession of moderate thunder and lightning storms from the west, two or three, an hour apart. May 30, 1860

I took refuge from the thunder-shower this afternoon by running for a high pile of wood . . . making a little shed, under which I stood dry. May 30, 1860

Perhaps I could write meditations under a rock in a shower. May 30, 1857

Birds appear to be but little incommoded by the rain. Yet they do not often sing in it. May 30, 1857

When first I had sheltered myself under the rock, I began at once to look out on the pond with new eyes . . . Ordinarily we make haste away from all opportunities to be where we have instinctively endeavored to get. May 30, 1857

When the storm was over where I was, and only a few thin drops were falling around me, I plainly saw the rear of the rain withdrawing over the Lincoln woods south of the pond, and, above all, heard the grand rushing sound made by the rain falling on the freshly green forest. May 30, 1857

In the midst of the shower, though it was not raining very hard, a black and white creeper came and inspected the limbs of a tree before my rock, in his usual zigzag, prying way, head downward often, and when it thundered loudest, heeded it not. May 30, 1857

See a small black snake run along securely through thin bushes (alders and willows) three or four feet from the ground, passing intervals of two feet easily,—very readily and gracefully, —ascending or descending. May 30, 1855

Wood frogs skipping over the dead leaves, whose color they resemble. May 30, 1854

Saw some devil’s-needles (the first) about the 25th. May 30, 1860

Passed a cow that had just dropped her calf in the meadow. May 30, 1852

The white maple keys falling and covering the river. May 30, 1853

The river is my own highway, the only wild and unfenced part of the world hereabouts. May 30, 1852

The blue sky is never more celestial to our eyes than when it is first seen here and there between the clouds at the end of a storm . . . There was a slight rainbow on my way home. May 30, 1857

As I stand by the riverside some time after sundown, I see a light white mist rising here and there in wisps from the meadow, far and near . . . there is some warm breath of the meadow turned into cloud. May 30, 1858

*****

Now is the summer come. . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave. See May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June.”); May 27, 1855 ("The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave;. . .”); May 26, 1854 (At sight of this deep and dense field all vibrating with motion and light, winter recedes many degrees in my memory. . . . The season of grass, now everywhere green and luxuriant.”); May 19, 1860 ("The grass, especially the meadow-grasses, are seen to wave distinctly, and the shadows of the bright fair-weather cumuli are sweeping over them.")

Buttercups thickly spot the churchyard. See May 27, 1853 ("The buttercups in the church-yard and on some hillsides are now looking more glossy and bright than ever after the rain.”); June 2, 1852 (“Buttercups now spot the churchyard.”)

Arethusa  abundantly out at Hubbard's Close. .See May 29, 1856 ("Arethusa bulbosa at Hubbard’s Close apparently a day or two.”).; June 1, 1855(“Arethusa out at Hubbard’s Close; say two or three days at a venture, there being considerable.“)

The lady’s-slipper .  See May 27, 1852 ("Ladies'-slippers out. They perfume the air.”); May 26, 1857 (“A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. ”); May 20, 1852 ("A lady's-slipper well budded”); May19, 1860 (“At the Ministerial Swamp I see a white lady's-slipper almost out, fully grown, with red ones.”); May 18, 1851 ("Lady's-slipper almost fully blossomed”).

Perhaps I could write meditations under a rock in a shower. See August 13, 1853 (“Could I not write meditations under a bridge at midsummer?”)

The blue sky is never more celestial to our eyes than when it is first seen here and there between the clouds at the end of a storm. See January 7, 1851 ("The life, the joy, that is in blue sky after a storm!")

I began at once to look out on the pond with new eyes, as from my house. I was at Lee's Cliff as I had never been there before . . .See June 13, 1854 ("When I have stayed out thus late many miles from home, and have heard a cricket beginning to chirp louder near me in the grass I have felt that I was not far from home after all, -- began to be weaned from my village home."); May 23, 1853 ("[A] certain lateeness ... releases me from the obligation to return in any particular season. I have passed the Rubicon of staying out. ...I will wander further from what I have called my home - to the home which is forever inviting me. In such an hour the freedom of the woods is offered me")

I took refuge from the thunder-shower this afternoon by running for a high pile of wood.  / This Cliff thus became my house. I inhabited it. . . I think that such a projection as this, or a cave, is the only effectual protection that nature affords us against the storm. See also  August 9, 1851 ("I meet the rain at the edge of the wood, and take refuge under the thickest leaves, where not a drop reaches me, and, at the end of half an hour, the renewed singing of the birds alone advertises me that the rain has ceased, and it is only the dripping from the leaves which I hear in the woods."); June 14, 1855 (“It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under, sitting on the paddles, . . .  It is very pleasant to lie there half an hour close to the edge of the water and see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble”); July 22, 1858 ("Took refuge from a shower under our boat at Clamshell; staid an hour at least. A thunderbolt fell close by."); August 17, 1858 (“Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us.”); October 17, 1859 ("The rain drives me from my berrying and we take shelter under a tree. It is worth the while to sit under the lee of an apple tree trunk in the rain, if only to study the bark and its inhabitants. ")

May 30.

May 30, 2012
A day for shadows, for fast moving clouds over fields of waving grass.

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

May 29< <<<<<. May 30.    >>>>> May 31

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  May 30

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