The last cricket, full of cheer and faith, piping to himself, as the last man might.

November 12.

I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary wealth, I have been nailed down to this my native region so long and steadily, and made to study and love this spot of earth more and more.

What would signify in comparison a thin and diffused love and knowledge of the whole earth instead, got by wandering? The traveller's is but a barren and comfortless condition.

Wealth will not buy a man a home in nature, — house nor farm there. The man of business does not by his business earn a residence in nature, but is denaturalized rather.

What is a farm, house and land, office or shop, but a settlement in nature under the most favorable conditions? It is insignificant, and a merely negative good fortune, to be provided with thick garments against cold and wet, an unprofitable, weak, and defensive condition, compared with being able to extract some exhilaration, some warmth even, out of cold and wet themselves, and to clothe them with our sympathy.

The rich man buys woollens and furs, and sits naked and shivering still in spirit, besieged by cold and wet. But the poor Lord of Creation, cold and wet he makes to warm him, and be his garments.

Tansy is very fresh still in some places.

Tasted to-day a black walnut, a spherical and corrugated nut with a large meat, but of a strong oily taste.


8 P. M. — Up river to Hubbard Bathing-Place.

Moon nearly full.

A mild, almost summer evening after a very warm day, alternately clear and overcast. The meadows, with perhaps a little mist on them, look as if covered with frost in the moonlight.

At first it is quite calm, and I see only where a slight wave or piece of wet driftwood along the shore reflects a flash of light, suggesting that we have come to a season of clearer air. This occasional slight sparkling on either hand along the water ' s edge attends me.

I come out now on the water to see our little river broad and stately as the Merrimack or still larger tides, for though the shore be but a rod off, the meeting of land and water being concealed, it is as good as if a quarter of a mile distant, and the near bank is like a distant hill.

There is now and of late months no smell of muskrats, which is probably confined to the spring or rutting season.

While the sense of seeing is partly slumbering, that of hearing is more wide awake than by day, and, now that the wind is rising, I hear distinctly the chopping of every little wave under the bow of my boat.

Hear no bird, only the loud plunge of a muskrat from time to time.

The moon is wading slowly through broad squadrons of clouds, with a small coppery halo, and now she comes forth triumphant and burnishes the water far and wide, and makes the reflections more distinct.

Trees stand bare against the sky again. This the first month in which they do.

I hear one cricket singing still, faintly deep in the bank, now after one whitening of snow. His theme is life immortal. The last cricket, full of cheer and faith, piping to himself, as the last man might.

The dark squadrons of hostile clouds have now swept over the face of the moon, and she appears unharmed and riding triumphant in her chariot. Suddenly they dwindle and melt away in her mild, and all-pervading light, dissipated like the mists of the morning. They pass away and are forgotten like bad dreams.

Landed at the bathing-place.

There is no sound of a frog from all these waters and meadows which a few months ago resounded so with them; not even a cricket or the sound of a mosquito.

I can fancy that I hear the sound of peeping hylodes ringing in my ear, but it is all fancy.

How short their year! How early they sleep! Nature is desert and iron-bound; she has shut her door. How different from the muggy nights of summer, teeming with life! That resounding life is now buried in the mud, returned into Nature's womb, and most of the birds have retreated to the warm belt of the earth.

Yet still from time to time a pickerel darts away.

And still the heavens are unchanged; the same starry geometry looks down on their active and their torpid state.

And the first frog that puts his eye forth from the mud next spring shall see the same everlasting starry eyes ready to play at bo-peep with him, for they do not go into the mud.

However, you shall find the muskrats lively enough now at night, though by day their cabins appear like deserted cabins. When I paddle near one, I hear the sudden plunge of one of its inhabitants, and some times see two or three at once swimming about it.

Now is their day.

It is remarkable that these peculiarly aboriginal and wild animals, whose nests are perhaps the largest of any creatures hereabouts, should still so abound in the very midst of civilization and erect their large and conspicuous cabins at the foot of our gardens. However, I notice that unless there is a strip of meadow and water on the garden side they erect their houses on the wild side of the stream.

The hylodes, as it is the first frog heard in the spring, so it is the last in the autumn. I heard it last, me thinks, about a month ago.

I do not remember any hum of insects for a long time, though I heard a cricket to-day.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 12, 1853

The meadows, with perhaps a little mist on them, look as if covered with frost in the moonlight. See November 12, 1851 ("The moonlight reflected from (apparently) the fine frost crystals on the withered grass"). See also November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight, — only there was no moon.."); December 10, 1856 ("The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night."); September 22, 1854 ("By moonlight all is simple..")

Li Po :(Thoughts in Night Quiet)

Seeing moonlight here at my bed,

and thinking it’s frost on the ground,

I look up, gaze at the mountain moon,

then back, dreaming of my old home

Trees stand bare against the sky again. This the first month in which they do. See November 12, 1851 ("The openness of the leafless woods is particularly apparent now by moonlight.")

 

And still the heavens are unchanged; the same starry geometry looks down. See November 12, 1851 ("It is worth the while always to go to the waterside when there is but little light in the heavens and see the heavens and the stars reflected. There is double the light that there is elsewhere, and the reflection has the force of a great silent companion."); See also October 28, 1852 ("After whatever revolutions in my moods and experiences, when I come forth at evening, as if from years of confinement to the house, I see the few stars which make the constellation of the Lesser Bear in the same relative position, - the everlasting geometry of the stars.") 

The moon is wading slowly through broad squadrons of clouds, with a small coppery halo, and now she comes forth triumphant and burnishes the water far and wide, and makes the reflections more distinct. See August 12, 1851 ("The traveller’s whole employment is to calculate what cloud will obscure the moon and what she will triumph over. . . And when she has fought her way through all the squadrons of her foes, and rides majestic in a clear sky, he cheerfully and confidently pursues his way, and rejoices in his heart.")

The last cricket, full of cheer and faith, piping to himself, as the last man might. See November 12, 1851 ("The ground is frozen and echoes to my tread. There are absolutely no crickets to be heard now. They are heard, then, till the ground freezes.") See also November 8, 1853 ("Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday. They chirp here and there at longer and longer intervals, till the snow quenches their song."); November 8, 1859 (" I hear a small z-ing cricket."); November 11, 1855 ("Frogs are rare and sluggish, as if going into winter quarters. A cricket also sounds rather rare and distinct. "); November 11, 1858 ("I afterward hear a few of the common cricket on the side of Clamshell. Thus they are confined now to the sun on the south sides of hills and woods. They are quite silent long before sunset. "); November 13, 1851 ("Not a mosquito left. Not an insect to hum. Crickets gone into winter quarters."); November 13, 1858 ("Of course frozen ground, ice, and snow have now banished the few remaining skaters (if there were any ?), crickets, and water-bugs."); November 15, 1859 ("I hear in several places a faint cricket note, either a fine z-ing or a distincter creak, also see and hear a grasshopper's crackling flight."); November 19, 1857 ("Turning up a stone on Fair Haven Hill, I find many small dead crickets about the edges, which have endeavored to get under it and apparently have been killed by the frost"); November 22, 1851 ("He turned over a stone, and I saw under it many crickets and ants still lively, which had gone into winter quarters there apparently. . . . That is the reason, then, that I have not heard the crickets lately.")