P. M. — To Lee's Cliff.
A fine-grained air, June-like, after a cloudy, rain- threatening or rainy morning. Sufficient with a still, clear air in which the hum of insects is heard, and the sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. The grass is not yet dry. The birds sing more lively than ever now after the rain, though it is only 2 p. m.
On the Corner road I overtake a short, thick-set young man dressed in thick blue clothes, with a large basket of scions, etc., on his arm, who has just come from Newton in the cars and is going to graft for Lafayette Garfield, thus late. He does not think much of the Baldwin, and still less of the Porter. The last is too sour! and, above all, does not bear well! ! Has set more scions of Williams' Favorite than of any other, and thinks much of Seaver's apple, a sweeting, etc. Verily, it is all de gustibus. Having occasion to speak of his father, who had been unfortunate, he said, " We boys (his sons) clubbed together and bought the old fellow a farm" just before he died. He had a very broad, round face, and short front teeth half buried in the gums, for he exposed the whole of his gums when he opened his mouth.
I think I have noticed that coarse-natured farmers' boys, etc., have not a sufficiently fine and delicate taste to appreciate a high-flavored apple. It is commonly too acid for them, and they prefer some tame, sweet thing, fit only for baking, as a pumpkin sweeting.
Men derive very various nutriment from the same nature, their common habitat, like plants. Some derive, as it were directly from the soil, a brawny body, and their cheeks bulge out like pumpkin sweetings. They seem more thoroughly naturalized here, and the elements are kinder to them. They have more of the wind and rain and meadow muck in their composition. They flourish in the swampy soil like vegetables and do not fear toothache or neuralgia. Some grow like a pumpkin pine, at least. They fish and hunt and get the meadow-hay. Compared with ordinary men, they grow like a Rohan potato beside a Lady's-Finger. Their system has great power of assimilation. The soil is native to them. As different elements go to the composition of two human bodies as the thoughts that occupy their brains are different. How much more readily one nature assimilates to beef and potatoes and makes itself a brawny body of them, than another!
We sat and talked a spell at the Corner Spring.
What is the new warbler I see and hear frequently now, with apparently a black head, white side-head, brown back, forked tail, and light legs?
The sun came out an hour or more ago, rapidly drying the foliage, and for the first time this year I noticed the little shades produced by the foliage which had expanded in the rain, and long narrow dark lines of shade along the hedges or willow-rows. It was like the first bright flashings of an eye from under dark eyelashes after shedding warm tears.
Now I see a great dark low-arching cloud in the northwest already dropping rain there and steadily sweeping southeast, as I go over the first Conantum Hill from the spring. But I trust that its southwest end will drift too far north to strike me. The rest of the sky is quite serene, sprinkled here and there with bright downy, glowing summer clouds. The grass was not yet dried before this angry summer-shower cloud appeared.
I go on, uncertain whether it is broad or thin and whether its heel will strike me or not. How universal that strawberry-like fragrance of the fir-balsam cone and wilted twig! My meadow fragrance (also perceived on hillsides) reminds me of it. Methinks that the fragrance of the strawberry may stand for a large class of odors, as the terebinthine odors of firs and arbor-vitae and cedar (as the harp stands for music). There is a certain sting to it, as to them.
Black shrub oaks well out.
Oxalis stricta.
The Veronica serpyllifolia, now erect, is commonly found in moist depressions or hollows in the pastures, where perchance a rock has formerly been taken out and the grass is somewhat thicker and deeper green; also in the grassy ruts of old, rarely used cart-paths.
Red and black oaks are out at Lee's Cliff, well out, and already there are crimson spots on the red oak leaves. Also the fine red mammilla galls stud the black cherry leaves. Galls begin with the very unfolding of the leaves.
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| Solomon’s Seal 5/20/2017 (avesong) |
The Polygonatum pubescens out there.
Some, nay most, Turritis stricta quite out of bloom.
Fair Haven Lake now, at 4.30 p. m., is perfectly smooth, reflecting the darker and glowing June clouds as it has not before. Fishes incessantly dimple it here and there, and I see afar, approaching steadily but diagonally toward the shore of the island, some creature on its surface, maybe a snake, — but my glass shows it to be a muskrat, leaving two long harrow-like ripples behind. Soon after, I see another, quite across the pond on the Baker Farm side, and even distinguish that to be a muskrat. The fishes, methinks, are busily breeding now. These things I see as I sit on the top of Lee's Cliff, looking into the light and dark eye of the lake.
The heel of that summer-shower cloud, seen through the trees in the west, has extended further south and looks more threatening than ever. As I stand on the rocks, examining the blossoms of some forward black oaks which close overhang it, I think I hear the sound of flies against my hat. No, it is scattered raindrops, though the sky is perfectly clear above me, and the cloud from which they come is yet far on one side.
I see through the tree-tops the thin vanguard of the storm scaling the celestial ramparts, like eager light infantry, or cavalry with spears advanced. But from the west a great, still, ash-colored cloud comes on. The drops fall thicker, and I seek a shelter under the Cliffs.
I stand under a large projecting portion of the Cliff, where there is ample space above and around, and I can move about as perfectly protected as under a shed. To be sure, fragments of rock look as if they would fall, but I see no marks of recent ruin about me.
Soon I hear the low all-pervading hum of an approaching hummingbird circling above the rock, which afterward I mistake several times for the gruff voices of men approaching, unlike as these sounds are in some respects, and I perceive the resemblance even when I know better. Now I am sure it is a hummingbird, and now that it is two farmers approaching. But presently the hum becomes more sharp and thrilling, and the little fellow suddenly perches on an ash twig within a rod of me, and plumes himself while the rain is fairly beginning. He is quite out of proportion to the size of his perch. It does not acknowledge his weight.
I sit at my ease and look out from under my lichen-clad rocky roof, half-way up the Cliff, under freshly leafing ash and hickory trees on to the pond, while the rain is falling faster and faster, and I am rather glad of the rain, which affords me this experience. The rain has compelled me to find the cosiest and most homelike part of all the Cliff.
The surface of the pond, though the rain dimples it all alike and I perceive no wind, is still divided into irregular darker and lighter spaces, with distinct boundaries, as it were watered all over. Even now that it rains very hard and the surface is all darkened, the boundaries of those spaces are not quite obliterated. The countless drops seem to spring again from its surface like stalagmites.
A mosquito, sole living inhabitant of this antrum, settles on my hand. I find here sheltered with me a sweet-briar growing in a cleft of the rock above my head, where perhaps some bird or squirrel planted it. Mulleins beneath. Galium Aparine, just begun to bloom, growing next the rock; and, in the earth-filled clefts, columbines, some of whose cornucopias strew the ground. Ranunculus bulbosus in bloom; saxifrage; and various ferns, as spleenwort, etc. Some of these plants are never rained on. I perceive the buttery-like scent of barberry bloom from over the rock, and now and for some days the bunches of effete white ash anthers strew the ground.
It lights up a little, and the drops fall thinly again, and the birds begin to sing, but now I see a new shower coming up from the southwest, and the wind seems to have changed somewhat. Already I had heard the low mutterings of its thunder — for this is a thunder- shower — in the midst of the last. It seems to have shifted its quarters merely to attack me on a more exposed side of my castle. Two foes appear where I had expected none. But who can calculate the tactics of the storm?
It is a first regular summer thunder-shower, preceded by a rush of wind, and I begin to doubt if my quarters will prove a sufficient shelter. I am fairly besieged and know not when I shall escape. I hear the still roar of the rushing storm at a distance, though no trees are seen to wave.
And now the forked flashes descending to the earth succeed rapidly to the hollow roars above, and down comes the deluging rain. I hear the alarmed notes of birds flying to a shelter. The air at length is cool and chilly, the atmosphere is darkened, and I have forgotten the smooth pond and its reflections. The rock feels cold to my body, as if it were a different season of the year.
I almost repent of having lingered here; think how far I should have got if I had started homeward. But then what a condition I should have been in! Who knows but the lightning will strike this cliff and topple the rocks down on me? The crashing thunder sounds like the overhauling of lumber on heaven's loft.
And now, at last, after an hour of steady confinement, the clouds grow thin again, and the birds begin to sing. They make haste to conclude the day with their regular evening songs (before the rain is fairly over) according to the program.
The pepe on some pine tree top was heard almost in the midst of the storm. One or two bullfrogs trump. They care not how wet it is.
Again I hear the still rushing, all-pervading roar of the withdrawing storm, when it is at least half a mile off, wholly beyond the pond, though no trees are seen to wave. It is simply the sound of the countless drops falling on the leaves and the ground. You were not aware what a sound the rain made.
Several times I attempt to leave my shelter, but return to it. My first stepping abroad seems but a signal for the rain to commence again. Not till after an hour and a half do I escape. After all, my feet and legs are drenched by the wet grass.
Those great hickory buds, how much they contained! You see now the large reddish scales turned back at the base of the new twigs. Suddenly the buds burst, and those large pinnate leaves stretched forth in various directions.
I see and hear the cuckoo. The Salix nigra, apparently several days, at Corner Bridge. Many of the black spruce have the terminal twigs dead. They are a slow-growing tree.
It is encouraging to see thrifty-growing white pines by their side, which have added three feet to their height the last year.
With all this opportunity, this comedy and tragedy, how near all men come to doing nothing!
It is strange that they did not make us more intense and emphatic, that they do not goad us into some action. Generally, with all our desires and restlessness, we are no more likely to embark in any enterprise than a tree is to walk to a more favorable locality. The seaboard swarms with adventurous and rowdy fellows, but how unaccountably they train and are held in check! They are as likely to be policemen as anything. It exhausts their wits and energy merely to get their living, and they can do no more.
The Americans are very busy and adventurous sailors, but all in somebody's employ, — as hired men. I have not heard of one setting out in his own bark, if only to run down our own coast on a voyage of adventure or observation, on his own account.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1857
The shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. See June 4, 1855 ("dark shadows on field and wood are the more remarkable by contrast with the light yellow-green foliage now, and when they rest on evergreens they are doubly dark, like dark rings about the eyes of June."); June 9. 1856 ("Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath.”); June 11, 1856 (“I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground. . . . It reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer.”). See also .note to June 6, 1855 ("The dark eye and shade of June”).
Looking into the light and dark eye of the lake. See June 26, 1852 ("The smooth reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the ice is just melted. Those liquid eyes of nature, blue or black or even hazel, deep or shallow, clear or turbid; green next the shore, the color of their iris.”)
The Veronica serpyllifolia, now erect, is commonly found in moist depressions ... See May 12, 1857 ("Veronica serpyllifolia is abundantly out at Corner Spring”); May 17, 1856 ("Veronica serpylléfolia abundant now on banks, erected.”)
Ranunculus bulbosus in bloom. See May 29, 1859 ("The Ranunculus bulbosus are apparently in prime.")
Oxalis stricta. May 26, 1852 ("Walking home from surveying, the fields are just beginning to be reddened with sorrel.”); May 22, 1854 (" . . the sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health, — all these things make earth now a paradise.”)
Soon I hear the low all-pervading hum of an approaching hummingbird circling above the rock . . See May 17, 1856 ("There, along with me in the deep, wild swamp . . . Its hum was heard afar at first, like that of a large bee, bringing a larger summer.”)
It is a first regular summer thunder-shower, preceded by a rush of wind . . . See May 10, 1857 (" a sudden shower with some thunder and lightning; the first.")
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