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
This tender fresh green --
the world can never be more
beautiful than now.
Sunny yellow-green
light and life in the landscape.
This beautiful world.
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| May 18, 2019 |
I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day
and look over the awakening woods and
the river
and hear the new birds sing
with the same delight as ever.
It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever,
what this world is.
Henry Thoreau,
It seems to take but one summer day to fetch the summer in. May 18, 1851
The shrub oaks are now blossoming . May 18, 1851
Chinquapin was probably a little later to leaf, and will be to flower, than the shrub oak. May 18, 1854
The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers. May 18, 1851
The hickory buds are almost leaves May 18, 1851
By looking very carefully in the most favored and warmest localities, you may find most flowers out some weeks even in advance of the rest of their kind. May 18, 1853
The rhodora is one of the very latest leafing shrubs, for its leaf-buds are but just expanding, making scarcely any show yet, but quite leafless amid the blossoms. May 18, 1853
Viola lanceolata, two days at least. May 18, 1854
The V. pedata beginning to be abundant. May 18, 1854
E. Emerson finds half a dozen yellow violets. May 18, 1856
Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long? May 18, 1857
A red clover in blossom. May 18, 1853
Sorrel pollen. May 18, 1855
The violet wood-sorrel is apparently later than the Oxalis stricta, not now so forward, lower, and darker green, only a few of the leaves showing that purplish mark. May 18, 1857
Surprised to see a Ranunculus Purshii open. May 18, 1853
Lady’s-slipper almost fully blossomed. May 18, 1851
Two-leaved Solomon's-seal. May 18, 1859
I think that I have made out two kinds of poplar, — the Populus tremuloides or American aspen, and the P. grandidentata , or large American aspen, whose young leaves are downy. May 18, 1851
The blooming of the apple trees is becoming general. May 18, 1851
Interesting to see a wild apple tree in the old cellar there, though with a forward caterpillar's nest on it. Call it Malus cellars, that grows in an old cellar-hole. May 18, 1857
There is a very grand and picturesque old yellow birch in the old cellar northwest the yellow birch swamp. May 18, 1857
The yellow birches are in full bloom, and many catkins strew the ground. They are four or five inches long when in bloom. May 18, 1857
In the yellow birch and ash swamp west of big yellow birch, I hear the fine note of cherry-birds, much like that of young partridges, and see them on the ash trees. May 18, 1857
First veery strain. May 18, 1855
The scarlet tanagers are come. May 18, 1851
The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce. They swarm like gnats now. They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes. May 18, 1856
The birds are in full blast. May 18, 1851
The night-warbler is a powerful singer for so small a bird. It launches into the air above the forest, or over some hollow or open space in the woods, and challenges the attention of the woods by its rapid and impetuous warble, and then drops down swiftly into the tree-tops like a performer withdrawing behind the scenes, and he is very lucky who detects where it alights. May 18, 1860
A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’. .May 18, 1856
A female goldfinch on an oak . . . When I get over the fence, a flock of twenty or more, male and female, rise from amid the stubble, and, alighting on the oaks, sing pleasantly all together, in a lively manner. May 18, 1856
Observe a blackbird’s (red-wing’s) nest finished. May 18, 1855
At Clamshell a bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) May 18, 1855
I hear of young song sparrows and young robins since the 16th. May 18, 1859
See the yellow-legs feeding on shore. May 18, 1855
The clump of golden willows west of new stone bridge is very handsome now seen from hill, with its light-yellowish foliage, because the stems of the trees are seen through it. May 18, 1855
A singular effect produced by a mass of ferns at a little distance, some rods square, their light yellow green tops seen above the dark masses of their fruit. May 18, 1853
The deciduous trees are springing, to countenance the pines, which are evergreen. May 18, 1851.
There is a peculiar freshness about the landscape; you scent the fragrance of new leaves. May 18, 1851
To the eye the forest presents the tenderest green. May 18, 1851
There is a peculiar freshness about the landscape; you scent the fragrance of new leaves. May 18, 1851
To the eye the forest presents the tenderest green. May 18, 1851
The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. May 18, 1851
The landscape is most beautiful looking towards the sun . . . at four. May 18, 1852
This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date. The week when the deciduous trees are generally and conspicuously expanding their leaves. May 18, 1852
Combined with the tender fresh green, you have this remarkable clearness of the air. I doubt if the landscape will be any greener. May 18, 1852
The landscape is most beautiful looking towards the sun . . . at four. May 18, 1852
This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date. The week when the deciduous trees are generally and conspicuously expanding their leaves. May 18, 1852
Combined with the tender fresh green, you have this remarkable clearness of the air. I doubt if the landscape will be any greener. May 18, 1852
The world can never be more beautiful than now. May 18, 1852
*****
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| May 18, 2019 |
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Violets
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring Leaf-out
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aspens
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Big-toothed Aspen
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Yellow Birch
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Veery(Wilson's thrush)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Parti-Colored (Parula) Warbler (Sylvia Americana)
May 18, 2018
The Celtis occidentalis in bloom, maybe a day. Its shoots have grown two inches. See May 18, 1855 ("Celtis will probably shed pollen to-morrow; shoots already an inch long.") See also May 27, 1857 ("Celtis occidentalis, perhaps yesterday. How the staminate flowers drop off, even before opening!"); September 28, 1857 (" And they have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord deliver us from these vandalic proprietors! The botanist and lover of nature has, perchance, discovered some rare tree which has sprung up by a farmer's wall-side to adorn and bless it, sole representative of its kind in these parts. Strangers send for a seed or a sprig from a distance, but, walking there again, he finds that the farmer has sent a raw Irishman. . . with axe and stub-scythe to exterminate it, and he will know it no more forever. . . .If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care.")
Finding the Linaria Canadensis yesterday at the Cliffs on a very close search for flowers makes me think that, by looking very carefully in the most favored and warmest localities, you may find most flowers out some weeks even in advance of the rest of their kind. See May 17, 1853 ("The low black berry, apparently, on Cliffs is out, earlier than else where, and Veronica arvensis, very small, obscure pale-blue flower, and, to my surprise, Linaria Canadensis."); May 22, 1855 ("Linaria Canadensis on Cliffs open.") See also February 28, 1857 ("It takes several years' faithful search to learn where to look for the earliest flowers."); April 10, 1855 ("As for the early sedge, who would think of looking for a flower of any kind in those dry tufts whose withered blades almost entirely conceal the springing green ones? I patiently examined one tuft after another, higher and higher up the rocky hill, till at last I found one little yellow spike low in the grass which shed its pollen on my finger. As for the saxifrage, when I had given it up for to-day, having, after a long search in the warmest clefts and recesses, found only three or four buds which showed some white, I at length, on a still warmer shelf, found one flower partly expanded, and its common peduncle had shot up an inch. These few earliest flowers in these situations have the same sort of interest with the arctic flora, for they are remote and unobserved and often surrounded with snow.") And see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower
Two-leaved Solomon's-seal. May 13, 1855 (" The brook in Yellow Birch Swamp is very handsome now — broad and full, with the light-green hellebore eighteen inches high and the small two-leaved Solomon’s-seal about it, in the open wood.”); May 21, 1856 ("The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already.”); May 26, 1855 ("Two-leaved Solomon’s-seal pollen not long in most places.”); May 30, 1857 ("two-leaved Solomon's-seal out, . . . abundant.”)
That handsome spawn of Ed. Emerson's aquarium See April 18, 1859 (“Ed. Emerson shows me his aquarium.”)
The rhodora is quite leafless amid the blossoms. See May 18, 1855 ("Rhodora; probably some yesterday.") May 18, 1856 ("The rhodora there maybe to-morrow. Elsewhere I find it . . . to-day."); May 18, 1857 ("Pratt says he saw the first rhodora . . . out yesterday") See also May 14, 1859 ('Rhodora out, says C."); May 17, 1853 (“The rhodora is peculiar for being, like the peach, a profusion of pink blossoms on a leafless stem. This shrub is, then, a late one to leaf out.”); May 17, 1858 ("Rhodora at Clamshell well out.”)
Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long? See May 22, 1856 ("Viola Muhlenbergii . . . abundantly out; how long? A small pale-blue flower growing in dense bunches,”)
Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long? See May 22, 1856 ("Viola Muhlenbergii . . . abundantly out; how long? A small pale-blue flower growing in dense bunches,”)
A red clover in blossom. See June 12, 1854 (“Clover now reddens the fields.”); June 15, 1851 (“the clover gives whole fields a rich appearance, -- the rich red and the sweet-scented white. The fields are blushing with the red species as the western sky at evening.”); June 18, 1860 (“I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill.”)
Pratt says he finds the calla. See June 7, 1857 (“Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime. . .from the bog near Bateman's Pond”); June 9, 1857 (“The calla is generally past prime and going to seed. I had said to Pratt, "It will be worth the while to look for other rare plants in Calla Swamp, for I have observed that where one rare plant grows there will commonly be others." ”); July 2, 1957 (" Calla palustris . . . at the south end of Gowing's Swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another.”); September 4, 1857 (To Baeman’s Pond . . .Arum berries ripe.”)
Pratt has found perfectly white Viola pedata . . . but now lost them. See May 18, 1854 ("The V. pedata beginning to be abundant. "). May 20, 1852 ("the V. pedata is smooth and pale-blue, delicately tinged with purple reflections").
Judging from the flowering of such of the plants as I notice, this is a backward season. The white ash is not yet out in most favorable places. See May 18, 1853 ("White ash fully in bloom.")
Pratt says he finds the calla. See June 7, 1857 (“Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime. . .from the bog near Bateman's Pond”); June 9, 1857 (“The calla is generally past prime and going to seed. I had said to Pratt, "It will be worth the while to look for other rare plants in Calla Swamp, for I have observed that where one rare plant grows there will commonly be others." ”); July 2, 1957 (" Calla palustris . . . at the south end of Gowing's Swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another.”); September 4, 1857 (To Baeman’s Pond . . .Arum berries ripe.”)
Pratt has found perfectly white Viola pedata . . . but now lost them. See May 18, 1854 ("The V. pedata beginning to be abundant. "). May 20, 1852 ("the V. pedata is smooth and pale-blue, delicately tinged with purple reflections").
Judging from the flowering of such of the plants as I notice, this is a backward season. The white ash is not yet out in most favorable places. See May 18, 1853 ("White ash fully in bloom.")
The scarlet tanagers are come. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager
The swamp is all alive with warblers. They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes. See April 19, 1854 ("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. "); May 7, 1852 ("For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather. The first wave of summer from the south."); May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”); May 23, 1857 ("about the edges of the swamps in the woods, these birds are flitting about in the tree-tops like gnats, catching the insects about the expanding leaf-buds");May 28, 1855 ("I have seen within three or four days two or three new warblers “)
Tell tale, great yellow-legs. See May 31, 1854 ( "It acts the part of a telltale." "watchful, but not timid, ... while it stands on the lookout ... wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. ...")
The clump of golden willows west of new stone bridge is very handsome now seen from hill, with its light-yellowish foliage. See May 18, 1853 ("A singular effect produced by a mass of ferns at a little distance, some rods square, their light yellow green tops seen above the dark masses of their fruit. "
Viola lanceolata, two days at least. V. pedata beginning to be abundant. See May 5, 1859 (V. pedata and lanceolata rarer yet, or not seen. ”); May 6, 1855 (“Viola lanceolata,yesterday at least. ”); May 6, 1859 ("Viola pedata begins to be common about white pine woods there.”) May 13, 1858 ( Viola lanceolata, how long?”); May 17, 1853 ("tV. pedata there [by the Corner Spring] presents the greatest array of blue of any flower as yet.“);
This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape. See May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.")
The world can never be more beautiful than now. See May 1850 ("I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with the same delight as ever. It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever, what this world is. . . ."); May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today.”); May 17, 1852 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world. “); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”) See also September 18, 1860 ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.
The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green. See May 18, 1852 ("This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date. The week when the deciduous trees are generally and conspicuously expanding their leaves.”); May 17, 1854 (“The wooded shore is all lit up with the tender, bright green of birches fluttering in the wind and shining in the light”); see also May 19, 1860 (“See a green snake, a very vivid yellow green, of the same color with the tender foliage at present, and as if his colors had been heightened by the rain.”);
Perchance a May storm is brewing. See May 19, 1853 ("A May storm, gentle and rather warm"); May 17, 1852 ("Now the sun has come out after the May storm, how bright, how full of freshness and tender promise and fragrance is the new world!"); May 17, 1853 ("Does not summer begin after the May storm?”); May 22, 1857 ("When the May storm is over, then the summer is fairly begun.");May 22, 1858 ("Something like this annually occurs. After this May storm the sun bursts forth . . . and we seem to have taken a long stride into summer.")
The turning-point between winter and summer is reached. Compare March 30, 1860 ("[Y]ou seem to be crossing the threshold between winter and summer. As I walk the street I realize that a new season has arrived.”)
May, 18, 2020
If you make the least correctobservation of nature this year,you will have occasion to repeat itwith illustrations the next,and the season and life itself is prolonged.A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,, I love you like I love the sky
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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