Millers over river with long feelers

May 31. 

Tuesday. 

Small black flies or millers over river, with long feelers, flying low in swarms now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 31, 1859

See June 6, 1855 (“There are now those large swarms of black-winged millers a half-inch long, with two long streamers ahead, fluttering three to six inches over the water”)

May 31. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 31

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 © 2009-2021

He may have thought that no one but he came to Gowing's Swamp these afternoons

May 30.

 P. M. — To Gowing's Swamp. 

Gowing's Swamp
August 23, 1854
amid the sphagnum, lambkill, Kalmia glauca, andromeda, cranberry, etc

Sorrel begins to redden fields. 

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

May 30, 2019

No American mountain-ash out. 

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. It would only stand erect from time to time, — perfectly erect with its blackish paws held like hands near together in front, — just so as to bring its head, or eyes, above the level of the lambkill, kalmia, etc., and look round, turning now this ear toward me, then that; and every now and then it would make a short rush at me, half a foot or so, with a snort, and then draw back, and also grit its teeth — which it showed — very audibly, with a rattling sound, evidently to intimidate me. I could not drive it, but it would steadily face me and rush toward me thus. Also it made a short motion occasionally as if to bury itself by burrowing there. It impressed me as a singularly wild and grizzly [sic] native, survivor of the red man. 

He may have thought that no one but he came to Gowing's Swamp these afternoons. 

Its colors were gray, reddish brown, and blackish, the gray-tipped wind hairs giving it a grizzly look above, and when it stood up its distinct rust-color beneath was seen, while the top of its head was dark-brown, becoming black at snout, as also its paws and its little rounded ears. Its head from snout to ears, when it stood up erect, made a nearly horizontal line. It did much looking round. When thus erect, its expression and posture were very bear-like, with the clumsiness of the bear. Though I drew off three or four rods, it would not retreat into the thicket (which was only a rod off) while I was there so near. 

The scheuchzeria is at height or past. 

E. Emerson's Calla palustris out the 27th. 

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

Hear of linnaea out, the 28th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1859

Sorrel begins to redden fields. See May 19, 1860 ("Sorrel just begins to redden some fields"); May 22, 1854 ("The grass so short and fresh, the tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape, the birds now most musical, the sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health, — all these things make earth now a paradise.");  May 26, 1852 ("Walking home from surveying, the fields are just beginning to be reddened with sorrel. "); June 12, 1859 ("I am struck with the beauty of the sorrel now. . . What a wholesome red! . . . There is hardly a more agreeable sight at this season.")


The peculiarly tender foliage (yellowish) which began to invest the dark evergreens on the 22d lasts a week or more, growing darker. See note to May 22, 1859 ("The foliage is never more conspicuously a tender yellow than now. This lasts a week from this date, and then begins to be confounded with the older green. "). See also May 27, 1855("How important the dark evergreens now seen through the haze in the distance and contrasting with the gauze-like, as yet thin-clad deciduous trees"); May 26, 1857 ("The silvery leafets of the deciduous trees invest the woods like a permanent mist. At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air.")


The interior meadow of Gowing's Swamp. See note to January 30, 1858  ("The pool, where there is nothing but water and sphagnum to be seen and where you cannot go in the summer, is about two rods long and one and a half wide.")

Its colors were gray, reddish brown, and blackish, the gray-tipped wind hairs giving it a grizzly look above, and when it stood up its distinct rust-color beneath was seen, while the top of its head was dark-brown, becoming black at snout, as also its paws and its little rounded ears. See note to April 29, 1855 ("See his shining black eyes and black snout and his little erect ears. He is of a light brown forward at this distance (hoary above, yellowish or sorrel beneath), gradually darkening backward to the end of the tail, which is dark-brown. The general aspect is grizzly.")

May 30 See 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 © 2009-2021

I hear the quails nowadays while surveying.

May 29. 

May 29, 2019

Fogs this and yesterday morning. 

I hear the quails nowadays while surveying. 

Barberry in bloom, wild pinks, and blue-eyed grass.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal , May 29, 1852

Fogs this and yesterday morning. See May 24, 1854 ("A considerable fog, but already rising and retreating to the river. As I go along the causeway the sun rises red, with a great red halo, through the fog"); July 22, 1851 ("These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog.")

I hear the quails nowadays. See May 20, 1858 ("Hear a quail whistle.");  May 25, 1855 ("Hear a quail and the summer spray frog, amid the ring of toads."); June 1, 1856 (" Heard a quail whistle May 30th."); June 1, 1860 ("Farmer has heard the quail a fortnight. Channing yesterday."); June 3, 1859 ("Quail heard.")

Barberry in bloom. See May 28, 1855 ("Barberry open (probably two or more days at Lee’s)."); May 29, 1857 ("I perceive the buttery-like scent of barberry bloom from over the rock,"); May 29, 1858 ("I mistook dense groves of little barberries in the droppings of cows in the Boulder Field for apple trees at first. So the cows eat barberries, and help disperse or disseminate them exactly as they do the apple! That helps account for the spread of the barberry, then."); June 14, 1856 ("Miss Pratt brings me the fertile barberry from northeast the great yellow birch. The staminate is apparently effete.")

Wild pinks. See June 2, 1855 ("Silene, or wild pink, how long?"); May 31, 1856 ("Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days"); May 26, 1859 ("Geranium (how long?), behind Bittern Cliff, and wild pink.")

Blue-eyed grass. See note to May 27, 1859 ("Blue-eyed grass out.")

A black snake at home in the trees.

May 28. 

Saturday. P. M. — To Cliffs. 

Some Salix rostrata seed begins to fly. 

Low blackberry in bloom on railroad bank. 

Also S. Torreyana seed, just begun to fly. S. pedicellaris long out of bloom there. 

At the extreme east side of Trillium Wood, come upon a black snake, which at first keeps still prudently, thinking I may not see him, — in the grass in open land, — then glides to the edge of the wood and darts swiftly up into the top of some slender shrubs there — Viburnum dentatum and alder — and lies stretched out, eying me, in horizontal loops eight feet high. The biggest shrub was not over one inch thick at the ground. At first I thought its neck was its chief member, — as if it drew itself up by it, — but again I thought that it rather (when I watched it ascending) extended its neck and a great part of its body upward, while the lower extremity was more or less coiled and rigid on the twigs from a point d'appui. Thus it lifted itself quickly to higher forks. When it moved along more horizontally, it extended its neck far, and placed it successively between the slender forks. 

This snake, some four feet long, rested there at length twelve feet high, on twigs, not one so big as a pipe-stem, in the top of a shad-bush; yet this one's tail was broken off where a third of an inch thick, and it could not cling with that. It was quick as thought in its motions there, and perfectly at home in the trees, so far was it from making the impression of a snake in an awkward position. 

Cinnamon fern pollen [sic]. 

Lady's-slipper pollen. These grow under pines even in swamps, as at Ledum Swamp. 

The lint from leaves sticks to your clothes now. 

Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. 

Methinks every tree and shrub is started, or more, now, but the Vaccinium dumosum, which has not burst.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1859

Some Salix rostrata seed begins to fly. See June 6, 1856 ("That willow, male and female, opposite to Trillium Woods on the railroad, I find to be the Salix rostrata, or long-beaked willow, one of the ochre-flowered.")

This snake, some four feet long, perfectly at home in the trees. See May 16, 2018 ("It surprised me very much to see it cross from tree to tree exactly like a squirrel, where there appeared little or no support for such a body."); May 30, 1855 ("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")

The Vaccinium dumosum. See  August 30, 1856 (“I noticed also a few small peculiar-looking huckleberries hanging on bushes amid the sphagnum, and, tasting, perceived that they were hispid, a new kind to me. Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella . . .. Has a small black hairy or hispid berry, shining but insipid and inedible, with a tough, hairy skin left in the mouth.”); July 2, 1857 (“The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, not yet quite in prime. . . . not to be mistaken for the edible huckleberry or blueberry blossom.”); August 8, 1858 (“the Gaylussacia dumosa var. hiriella . . . the only inedible species of  Vaccinieoe that I know in this town”)

May 28. SeeA Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

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 ©  2009-2021

The dark river, now that shades are increased, is like the dark eye of a maiden.

May 27. 

This moment each year

the setting sun reflecting

from both pond and lake.

May 27, 2019

May 27, 2015

Friday. P. M. — Up Assabet.

Now first I notice a linty dust on the surface of the dark river at the Hemlocks, evidently from the new and downy leaves. These expressions of the face of Nature are as constant and sure to recur as those of the eyes of maidens, from year to year, — sure to be repeated as long as time lasts. 

It is a new and peculiar season when this phenomenon is observed. Rivers flow already bearing the dust of summer on their bosoms. The dark river, now that shades are increased, is like the dark eye of a maiden. 

Azalea nudiflora blooms generally. 

Hear a black and white creeper sing, ah vee vee, vee vee, vitchet vitchet vitchet vitchet. 

A peculiarity of these days is the first hearing of the crickets' creak, suggesting philosophy and thought. No greater event transpires now. It is the most interesting piece of news to be communicated, yet it is not in any newspaper.

Melvin and Skinner tell me of three wild geese, to their surprise seen within a week down the river, — a gander and two geese, — which must be breeding here. Melvin got near them a fortnight ago. They are too much disturbed to rear a brood, I think. 

Melvin tells of seeing once in June dead shad-flies washed up on the North Branch in windrows, along the shore. 

Golden senecio, at least to-morrow. 

Went by Temple's. For rural interest, give me the houses of the poor, with simply a cool spring, a good deal of weather-stained wood, and a natural door-stone: a house standing somewhere in nature, and not merely in an atmosphere of art, on a measured lot; on a hillside, perchance, obviously not made by any gardener, amid rocks not placed there by a landscape gardener for effect; with nothing "pretty" about it, but life reduced to its lowest terms and yet found to be beautiful. 

This is a good foundation or board to spring from. All that the natives erect themselves above that will be a genuine growth.

Blue-eyed grass out.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 27, 1859

Now first I notice a linty dust on the surface of the dark river at the Hemlocks. See June 4, 1854 (“The surface of the still water nowadays looking like dust at a little distance. Is it the down of the leaves blown off?”) and  note to June 4, 1857 (“I observed yesterday, the first time this year, the lint on the smooth surface of the Assabet at the Hemlocks, giving the water a stagnant look. It is an agreeable phenomenon to me, as connected with the season and suggesting warm weather. I suppose it to be the down from the new leaves.”)

These expressions of the face of Nature are sure to be repeated as long as time lasts. April 18, 1852 ("For the first time I perceive this spring that the year is a circle.”); September 24, 1859 ("Young men have not learned the phases of Nature; they do not know what constitutes a year, or that one year is like another."); May 5, 1860 ("It takes us many years to find out that Nature repeats herself annually”)

The dark river, now that shades are increased, is like the dark eye of a maiden. See June 6, 1855 ("You see the dark eye and shade of June on the river as well as on land.”); June 9. 1856 ("It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath .”); May 29, 1857 ("the sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June.”);May 29, 1857  ("It was like the first bright flashings of an eye from under dark eyelashes after shedding warm tears."); May 29, 1857 ("I sit on the top of Lee's Cliff, looking into the light and dark eye of the lake.")

Azalea nudiflora blooms generally. See note to May 31, 1853 ( It blossomed at the old election time, and he thought it 'the handsomest flower that grows.’”)

Hear a black and white creeper sing, ah vee vee, vee vee, vitchet vitchet vitchet vitchet. See 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.”). Compare April 28, 1856 ("I hear to-day frequently the seezer seezer seezer of the black and white creeper, . . . suggesting still warmer weather, —that the season has revolved so much further."); May 11, 1856 ("The black and white creeper also is descending the oaks, etc., and uttering from time to time his seeser seeser seeser. What a rich, strong striped blue-black (?) and white bird”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Black and White Creeper

The first hearing of the crickets' creak, suggesting philosophy and thought. See May 18, 1860 ("The creak of the cricket has been common on all warm, dry hills, banks, etc., for a week, - inaugurating the summer."); May 22, 1854 (“The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. . . . . Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. . . .A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal.”); May 24, 1857 (“Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer with his everlasting strain.”); May 26, 1852 ("To-night I hear many crickets. They have commenced their song. They bring in the summer.”); May 30, 1855 ("Is it not summer now when the creak of the crickets begins to be general?”); June 1, 1856 (“Was soothed and cheered by I knew not what at first, but soon detected the now more general creak of crickets”); June 4, 1857 ( “the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity. It is time now to bring our philosophy out of doors.”)

Golden senecio, at least to-morrow. See June 6, 1858 ("Golden senecio is not uncommon now")

Blue-eyed grass out. See May 29, 1852 ("Blue-eyed grass [in bloom]."); May 29, 1853 ("That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention"); May 29, 1856 (“Blue-eyed grass, probably to-morrow.”); May 31, 1854 (“Blue-eyed grass, apparently in pretty good season.”); June 6, 1855 (“Blue-eyed grass maybe several days in some places.”); June 15, 1851 (“The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up to heaven.”); June 15, 1852 ("The fields are blued with blue-eyed grass, — a slaty blue. "); June 15, 1859 ("Blue-eyed grass at height."); June 19, 1853 ("I see large patches of blue-eyed grass in the meadow across the river from my window"); June 20, 1852 ("The blue-eyed grass is shut up. When does it open?"); June 20, 1852 ("The blue-eyed grass is shut up. When does it open?"); July 6, 1851("Blue-eyed grass is now rarely seen. “)

On the way up the dogs are let loose and they dutifully walk along the trail in front of us.  I veer off on the last steep and get up to my chair in time to take several pictures of a the sunset through open clouds in the west. A jet pass is over headed for Europe. The sun is setting so at the right moment is reflecting both from the lake and the pond  —and still has more north to go. At dusk we head back regular way and both can walk in the dark without lights as the path is illuminated by the phosphorus of paint. Every rock that is to be avoided as marked and the rest is a fairyland of of lights pulling us through the woods.

This moment each year

the setting sun reflecting

from both pond and lake.

~zphx 20190527

The rhodora at Ledum Swamp is now in its perfection, brilliant islands of color..

May 26. 

RWE 1847

Thursday. P. M. — To Ledum Swamp and Lee's Cliff.

Eleocharis tenuis in bloom, apparently the earliest eleocharis. 

The rhodora at Ledum Swamp is now in its perfection, brilliant islands of color. 

Eriophorum vaginatum, how long? 

Ledum out apparently two or three days. 

Andromeda Polifolia out, how long? 

Tall swamp huckleberry just budded to bloom. 

Do I not hear the nuthatch note in the swamp? 

Do not detect the scheuchzeria there yet.

The air is full of terebinthine odors to-day, — the scent of the sweet-fern, etc. 

May 26, 2019
Moss Ledge

The reddish leaves (and calyx) of the Vaccinium vacillans, just leafed, are interesting and peculiar now, perhaps more or less crimson. 

See a flock of cowbirds, the first I have seen. 

Cows in water, so warm has it got to be. 

Geranium (how long?), behind Bittern Cliff, and wild pink. 

Pitch pine pollen at Lee's. 

Cherry-birds. 

Ascendant potentilla abundant, how long? 

Juniperus repens pollen, how long ? 

Interrupted fern pollen [sic]. 

The dicksonia fern is one foot high, but not fairly unfolded. 

The tender white-downy stems of the meadow saxifrage, seen toward the westering sun, are very conspicuous and thick in the meadows now. 

A purple finch's nest in one of our firs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 26, 1859

The rhodora at Ledum Swamp is now in its perfection, brilliant islands of color.   See 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.”); 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, 1855 ("Rhodora; probably some yesterday."); May 18, 1856 ("The rhodora there [Kalmia Swamp] maybe to-morrow. Elsewhere I find it (on Hubbard’s meadow) to-day. "); May 18, 1857 ("Pratt says he saw the first rhodora . . . out yesterday"); May 27, 2016 (“Kalmia in prime, and rhodora.”); May 31, 1857 (“Rhodora now in its prime. ”).

See a flock of cowbirds, the first I have seen. See September 6, 1858  (“To Ledum Swamp. Going over Clamshell Plain, I see a very large flock of a hundred or more cowbirds about some cows.”); August 25, 1855 (“They keep close to the cow’s head and feet, and she does not mind them; but when all go off . . .at my approach, the cow (about whom they were all gathered) looks off after them for some time, as if she felt deserted.”).

Cows in water, so warm has it got to be. See July 12, 1857 (“It is exceedingly sultry this afternoon, and few men are abroad. The cows stand up to their bellies in the river, lashing their sides with their tails from time to time.”).

May 26. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 26

Dragon-flies have begun to come out in numbers.

May 25. 

May 25,2019

Dragon-flies have begun to come out of their larva state in numbers, leaving the cases on the weeds, etc. See one tender and just out this forenoon.

Meadow fox-tail grass abundantly out (how long?), front of E. Hosmer's by bars and in E. Hubbard's meadow, front of meeting-house. 

The Salix petiolaris is either entire or serrate, and generally, I should now say, was becoming serrate, the later leaves, e. g. that one, a fertile one, nearly opposite the Shattuck oak. 

The river is quite high for the season, on account of the late rains. 

Hear within a day or two what I call the sprayey note of the toad, different and later than its early ring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 25, 1859

Hear within a day or two what I call the sprayey note of the toad, different and later than its early ring.  See May 25, 1851 (“I hear the dreaming of the frogs.  So it seems to me, and so significantly passes my life away. It is like the dreaming of frogs in a summer evening.”); May 25, 1855 ("Hear . . . the summer spray frog, amid the ring of toads.”); May 25, 1860  ("5 P.M. the toads ring loud and numerously, as if invigorated by this little moisture and coolness.”) See also  May 13, 1860 ("It is so warm that I hear the peculiar sprayey note of the toad generally at night."); May 16, 1853 ("Nature’appears to have passed a crisis. . ..  The sprayey dream of the toad has a new sound"); May 20, 1854 ("The steadily increasing sound of toads and frogs along the river with each successive warmer night is one of the most important peculiarities of the season. Their prevalence and loudness is in proportion to the increased temperature of the day. It is the first earth-song, beginning with the croakers, (the cricket's not yet), as if the very meads at last burst into a meadowy song."); June 12, 1855 (“I hear the toad, which I have called “spray frog” falsely, still. . . .A peculiarly rich, sprayey dreamer, now at 2 P. M.! . . . This rich, sprayey note possesses all the shore. It diffuses itself far and wide over the water and enters into every crevice of the noon, and you cannot tell whence it proceeds”); Compare May 25, 1852 ("I hear the first troonk of a bullfrog.”);  And see also June 13, 1851 ("The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog.") and note to May 6, 1858 ("I think that the different epochs in the revolution of the seasons may perhaps be best marked by the notes of reptiles. They express, as it were, the very feelings of the earth or nature.")(catologing the frogs of Massachsetts)

A sane and growing man revolutionizes every day.

May 24. 

Saturday. 

Our most glorious experiences are a kind of regret. Our regret is so sublime that we may mistake it for triumph. It is the painful, plaintively sad surprise of our Genius remembering our past lives and contemplating what is possible. . . .


It is a regret so divine and inspiring, so genuine, based on so true and distinct a contrast, that it surpasses our proudest boasts and the fairest expectations. 

My most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the morning. I frequently awake with an atmosphere about me as if my unremembered dreams had been divine, as if my spirit had journeyed to its native place, and, in the act of reentering its native body, had diffused an elysian fragrance around. 

The Genius says: "Ah! That is what you were! That is what you may yet be!” 

It is glorious for us to be able to regret even such an existence. A sane and growing man revolutionizes every day.

[It is remarkable that men commonly never refer to, never hint at, any crowning experiences when the common laws of their being were unsettled and the divine and eternal laws prevailed in them. Their lives are not revolutionary; they never recognize any other than the local and temporal authorities.] 

H. D Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1851

My most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the morning. See October 26, 1851 ("The instant that I awoke, methought I was a musical instrument . . . the organ and channel of melody, as a flute is of the music that is breathed through it"); March 17, 1852 (“ I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual . . .There is a moment in the dawn,. . .when we see things more truly than at any other time.”); October 29, 1857 ("Such early morning thoughts as I speak of . . . are a sort of permanent dream in my mind . . . we cannot tell what we have dreamed from what we have actually experienced. ") April 1, 1860 (“ I am surprised that my affirmations or utterances come to me ready-made, - not fore-thought, - so that I occasionally awake in the night simply to let fall ripe a statement which I had never consciously considered before, and as surprising and novel and agreeable to me as anything can be. As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind, which thought while we were asleep”)

May 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 24 

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 © 2009-2021

The foliage is never more conspicuously a tender yellow than now.

May 22. 

Sunday.

May 22, 2019

 A warm, drizzling day, the tender yellow leafets now generally conspicuous, and contrasting with the almost black evergreens which they have begun to invest. The foliage is never more conspicuously a tender yellow than now. This lasts a week from this date, and then begins to be confounded with the older green. 

We have had rain for three or four days, and hence the tender foliage is the more yellow.

Swallows fly low. 

The Ranunculus bulbosus is abundant. 

I see that by the very severe frost of about the 15th, or full of the moon, a great many leaves were killed, as young oaks, cultivated grapes, butternuts, ferns, etc., etc., which now show brown or blackish.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 22, 1859

The tender yellow leafets now generally conspicuous, and contrasting with the almost black evergreens which they have begun to invest. See May 22, 1855 ("The deciduous trees leafing begin to clothe or invest the evergreens."). Also May 14, 1852 ("The deciduous trees are rapidly investing the evergreens, making the woods rich and bosky by degrees. ); May 18, 1852 ("They are now being invested with the light, sunny, yellowish-green of the deciduous trees."); May 26, 1857 ("The silvery leafets of the deciduous trees invest the woods like a permanent mist."); May 27, 1855 (" . . . deciduous trees rapidly investing evergreens."); June 9, 1852 (“The deciduous trees have filled up the intervals between the evergreens, and the woods are bosky now.”)

The foliage is never more conspicuously a tender yellow than now. See May 22, 1854 ("Now the springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods. . .., the tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape."); May 18, 1852 (“This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date.”); May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.”)


Severe frost of about the 15th. See  May 21, 1855 (“[C]old weather, indeed, from the 20th to 23d inclusive. Sit by fires, and sometimes wear a greatcoat and expect frosts.”); May 31, 1856 ("It has been very cold for two or three days, and to-night a frost is feared. The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day. The hickory leaves are blackened by blowing in the cold wind.") May 31, 1858 ("There were severe frosts on the nights of the 28th and 29th, and now I see the hickories turned quite black");

To sit under the first apple tree in blossom is to take another step into summer.

May 21. 

Morning by river. 

May 21, 2019

A song sparrow's nest and eggs so placed in a bank that none could tread on it; bluish-white, speckled.

Also a robin's nest and eggs in the crotch of a maple.

Methinks birds that build amid the small branches of trees wait for the leaves to expand. [?]

The dew hangs on the grass like globules of quicksilver. Can I tell by it if it has rained in the night? I hear that it has.

P. M. — The black oak is just beginning to blossom.

The earlier apple trees are in bloom, and resound with the hum of bees of all sizes and other insects. To sit under the first apple tree in blossom is to take another step into summer.  The apple blossoms are so abundant and full, white tinged with red; a rich-scented Pomona fragrance, telling of heaps of apples in the autumn, perfectly innocent, wholesome, and delicious. 

On hillsides cut off two years ago, the red oaks now contrast at a little distance with the yellowish-green birches. The latter are covered with green lice, which cover me. 

The catbird sings like a robin sometimes, sometimes like a blackbird's sprayey warble. There is more of squeak or mew, and also of clear whistle, than in the thrasher's note. 

Nemopanthes in bloom; leaves three quarters of an inch. 

Sand cherry also, fully. 

Young blueberries every where in bloom, and Viola pedata along the woodland paths, in high land. 

Sorrel in bloom, beginning. I am eager to taste a handful.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 21, 1852


A song sparrow's nest and eggs so placed in a bank that none could tread on it; bluish-white, speckled.See  May 6, 1860 ("See a song sparrow’s nest with four eggs in the side of a bank, or rather ditch. I commonly find the earliest ones in such sheltered and concealed places"); May 12, 1857 ("I hear of, and also find, a ground-bird's (song sparrow's) nest with five eggs.");   May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs, made partly of usnea; two stories, i.e. upon an old nest, elevated one foot above the water; eggs with very dark blotches.")

Also a robin's nest and eggs in the crotch of a maple. See May 21, 1856 ("A robin’s nest without mud, on a young white oak in woods, with three eggs.") See also  May 6. 1855 (''A robin’s nest with two eggs, betrayed by peeping."); May 13, 1853 ("A robin's nest, with young, on the causeway"); May 19, 1854 ("The robin's nest and eggs are the earliest I see.")

The dew hangs on the grass like globules of quicksilver. May 11, 1852 ("Dews come with the grass. There is, I find on examining, a small, clear drop at the end of each blade, quite at the top on one side."); May 13, 1860: ("Each dewdrop is a delicate crystalline sphere trembling at the tip of a fresh green grass-blade.")

The earlier apple trees are in bloom. See note to May 25 , 1852 ("It is blossom week with the apples.")

An east wind.

East window at noon –

the sound of crickets and a

distant piano.

There once was a time

when the beauty and the music
were all within me.

I sat and listened

to a positive though faint

and distant music.

I sat and listened

possessed by the melody,

a song in my thoughts.

This was a time when

I felt a joy that knew not

its own origin.

A pleasure, a joy, 

an existence which I had

not procured myself.

Astonished, I saw 

that I am dealt with by 

superior powers.

That this earth is a

musical instrument and 

I its audience 

awake to music
calmed like a lake when there is
not a breath of wind.

So without effort
our depths revealed to ourselves
all the world goes by.

We touch this world and
feel exquisite pleasure – our
Maker blessing us.

An east wind. I hear
the clock strike plainly ten
or eleven P.M.

zphx 20190521, 20240418

I have found all things thus far,

persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons,

strangely adapted to my resources.

Henry Thoreau, A Week (Wednesday)

June 22, 1851 ("There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath of wind . . . So is it with us. Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives,. . . so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves. All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps . . . I awoke into a music which no one about me heard. Whom shall I thank for it ? . . . I feel my Maker blessing me. To the sane man the world is a musical instrument . The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure. ")

July 16, 1851("This earth was the most glorious musical instrument, and I was audience to its strains. To have such sweet impressions made on us, such ecstasies begotten of the breezes ! I can remember how I was astonished. I said to myself, — I said to others, — " There comes into my mind such an indescribable, infinite, all-absorbing, divine, heavenly pleasure, a sense of elevation and expansion, and [I] have had nought to do with it. I perceive that I am dealt with by superior powers. This is a pleasure, a joy, an existence which I have not procured myself.”)

April 18, 1852 ("An east wind. I hear the clock strike plainly ten or eleven P.M."); May 3, 1852
(" The clock strikes distinctly, showing the wind is easterly. There is a grand, rich, musical echo trembling on the air long after the clock has ceased to strike, like a vast organ, filling the air with a trembling music like a flower of sound. Nature adopts it. Beautiful is sound. ")

August 3, 1852 (" At the east window. — A temperate noon. I hear a cricket creak in the shade; also the sound of a distant piano. . . . At length the melody steals into my being. I know not when it began to occupy me. By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, my being moves in a sphere of melody,

May 23, 1854 ("There was a time when the beauty and the music were all within, and I sat and listened to my thoughts, and there was a song in them. I sat for hours on rocks and wrestled with the melody which possessed me. I sat and listened by the hour to a positive though faint and distant music . . .. When I walked with a joy which knew not its own origin.”)

A Book of the Seasons: May

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 1.

We have poetry

— flowers and the song of birds --

before woods leaf out.

May 1, 1852

May 2.

One frog begins then

the whole pond joins in until

all stop together.

May 2, 1852

May 3.

Little peeping frogs

make a sound you do not hear

unless you attend.

May 3, 1852

May 4.

The bright blue river,

the fresh yellow green meadow,

the green river grass.

May 4, 1860

May 5.

The peculiarly

beautiful, clean and tender

green of the grass there.

May 5, 1853

May 6.

The willows are now

suddenly a tender fresh

light yellowish-green.

May 6, 1852

May 7.

Now before the leaves,

little wood warblers begin

to people the trees

May 7, 1852

May 8.

Immortal water

strange to us forever,

sparkling with life.

May 8, 1854

May 9.

Sitting by the shore

this still cloudy thoughtful day

counting frog noses.

May 9, 1860

May 10.

Shad-bush in blossom,

seen afar amid gray twigs,

before its own leaves.

May 10, 1854

May 11

Young fresh-expanding

oak leaves form a leafy mist

throughout the forest.

May 11, 1859

May 12.

The sugar maple

blossoms on the commons

resound with bees.

May 12, 1860

May 13.

The expanding leaves

now beautiful in the rain

covered with clear drops.

May 13, 1852

May 14.

The willow blossoms

fill the air with a sweet scent

Ah! willow willow!

May 14, 1852

May 15.

Deciduous trees

are now a mist of leaflets

against the dark pines.

May 15, 1860

May 16.

So clear bright and fresh

the whole earth is one flower,

genial to man.

May 16, 1854

May 17.

How bright the new world,

how fresh and full of promise

after the May storm.

May 17 1852

May 18.

Sunny yellow-green

light and life in the landscape.

This beautiful world.

May 18,1852

May 19.

Shadows sweep over

the waving meadow grasses.

Bright fair weather clouds.

May 19, 1860

May 20.

Now is the time for

bright and breezy days blowing

off apple blossoms.

May 20, 1854

May 21.

Their leaves like flowers,

the birches by the railroad

flash yellow on me.

May 21, 1860

May 22.

The springing foliage

lighting up the landscape like

sunlight on the woods.

May 22, 1854

May 23.

Pee-a-wee, Pee-oo.

In the woods behind the spring

a wood pewee sings.

May 23, 1854

May 24.

The morning comes in

and awakens me early.

A window open.

May 24, 1854

May 25.

Loud very rich song,

black head, rose breast, white beneath:

Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

May 25, 1854

May 26.

This luxuriant growth 

vibrating motion and light,

seasons' rapid whirl.

May 26, 1854

May 27.

I hold a wood frog

the color of a dead leaf,

perfectly frog-like.

May 27, 1852

May 28.

Like a true minstrel 

the wood thrush sings steadily,

loud and clear and sweet.

May 28, 1855.

May 29.

The white maple keys

fall and float down the stream like

wings of great insects.

May 29, 1854

May 30.

Strong lights and shades now.

It is a day of shadows,

the leaves have so grown.

May 30, 1852

May 31.

The voice of the toad

first heard a month ago sounds

differently now.

May 31, 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 ©  2009-2019