There always appears to be something phosphorescent in moonlight reflected from water.

April 3.

April 3, 2021

They call that northernmost sea, thought to be free from ice, “Polina," — whither the musk oxen migrate. The coldest natures, persevere with them, go far enough, are found to have open sea in the highest latitudes.

It is a clear day with a cold westerly wind, the snow of yesterday being melted.

When the sun shines unobstructedly the landscape is full of light, for it is reflected from the withered fawn-colored grass, as it can not be from the green grass of summer. (On the back of the hill behind Gourgas'.)

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

I am going over the hills in the rear of the windmill site and along Peter's path. This path through the rolling stubble-fields, with the woods rather distant and the horizon distant in front on account of the intervention of the river and meadow, reminds me a little of the downs of Cape Cod, of the Plains of Nauset. This is the only walk of the kind that we have in Concord. Perhaps it should be called Cæsar's Path.

The maple at the brook by this path has not expanded its buds, though that by the Red Bridge had so long ago. What the cause? Are they different species? 

I have observed much snow lately on the north slopes where shrub oaks grow; where probably the ground is frozen, more snow, I think, than lies in the woods in such positions. It is even two or three feet deep in many such places, though few villagers would believe it.

One side of the village street, which runs east and west, appears a month in advance of the other. I go down the street on the wintry side; I return through summer.

How agreeable the contrasts of light and shade, especially when the successive swells of a hill side produce the shade!

The clouds are important to-day for their shadows. If it were not for them, the landscape would be one glare of light without variety. By their motion they still more vary the scene.

Man's eye is so placed as to look straight forward on a level best, or rather down than up. His eye demands the sober colors of the earth for its daily diet. He does not look up at a great angle but with an effort.

Many clouds go over without our noticing them, for it would not profit us much to notice it, but few cattle pass by in the street or the field without our knowing it.

The moon appears to be full to-night.

About 8.30 P. M. I walked to the Clamshell Hill. It is very cold and windy, and I miss my gloves, left at home. Colder than the last moon.

The sky is two-thirds covered with great four or more sided downy clouds, drifting from the north or northwest, with dark-blue partitions between them. The moon, with a small brassy halo, seems travelling ever through them toward the north.

The water is dull and dark, except close to the windward shore, where there is a smooth strip a rod or more in width protected from the wind, which reflects a faint light. When the moon reaches a clear space, the water is suddenly lit up quite across the meadows, for half a mile in length and several rods in width, while the woods beyond are thrown more into the shade, or seen more in a mass and indistinctly, than before.

The ripples on the river, seen in the moonlight, those between the sunken willow lines, have the arc of a circle, as if their extremities were retarded by the friction of the banks.

I noticed this afternoon that bank below Cæsar's, now partially flooded, higher than the neighboring meadow, so that sometimes you can walk down on it a mile dry shod with water on both sides of you. Like the banks of the Mississippi.

There always appears to be something phosphorescent in moonlight reflected from water.

Venus is very bright now in the west, and Orion is there, too, now.

I came out mainly to see the light of the moon reflected from the meadowy flood. It is a pathway of light, of sheeny ripples, extending across the meadow toward the moon, consisting of a myriad little bent and broken moons.

I hear one faint peep bird on its roost.

The clouds are travelling very fast into the south. I would not have believed the heavens could be cleared so soon. They consist of irregularly margined, wide whitish bars, apparently converging, rendezvousing, toward one point far in the south horizon. Like the columns of a host in the sky, each being conducted by its own leader to one rendezvous in the southern heavens.

Such is the illusion, for we are deceived when we look up at this concave sphere, as when we look on a plane map representing the convex globe, --not by Mercator's projection.

But what a grand incident of the night — though hardly a night passes without many such — that, between the hours of nine and ten, a battalion of downy clouds many miles in length and several in width were observed sailing noiselessly like a fleet from north to south over land and water, town and cottage, at the height of half a dozen miles above the earth! Over woods and over villages they swept along, intercepting the light of the moon, and yet perchance no man observed them.

Now they are all gone.

The sky is left clear and cold and but thinly peopled at this season. It is of a very light blue in all the horizon, but darker in the zenith, darkest of all in the crevice between two downy clouds. It is particularly light in the western horizon. Who knows but light is reflected from snow lying on the ground further inland? 

The water, as I look at it in the north or northeast, is a very dark blue, the moon being on my right; afterwards, crossing the railroad bridge, is a deep sea-green.

The evenings are now much shortened, suggesting that ours is to be henceforth a daylight life.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 3, 1852

There always appears to be something phosphorescent in moonlight reflected from water. See June 13, 2011 ("I am startled to see midway in the dark water a bright flame-like, more than phosphorescent light crowning the crests of the wavelets. Though one would have said they were of an intenser light than the moon herself, . . . I see this is so many broken reflections of the moon's disk.")

A pathway of light, of sheeny ripples, extending across the meadow toward the moon, consisting of a myriad little bent and broken moons. See June 13, 1851 ("I see the moon's inverted pyramid of light shimmering on its surface.. . . which, in fact, is made up of a myriad little mirrors reflecting the disk of the moon.")  See also  Dogen:

~  Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky . ~

What a grand incident of the night — a battalion of downy clouds sailing noiselessly like a fleet from north to south over land and water, intercepting the light of the moon. See August 12, 1851 ("He rejoices when the moon comes forth from the squadrons of the clouds unscathed and there are no more any obstructions in her path,"); June 1, 1852 ("The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights"); July 27, 1852 ("Just before the earliest star I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds which have gathered.”); November 12, 1853 ("The moon is wading slowly through broad squadrons of clouds, with a small coppery halo.")

The sky is of a very light blue in all the horizon, but darker in the zenith, See February 4, 1852 ("Coming home through the village by this full moonlight, . . . the sky is the most glorious blue I ever beheld, even a light blue on some sides, as if I actually saw into day.")

The water, as I look at it in the north or northeast, is a very dark blue, afterwards, crossing the railroad bridge, is a deep sea-green. See April 3, 1853 ("Looking up the river yesterday, in a direction opposite to the sun, not long before it set, the water was of a rich, dark blue — while looking at it in a direction diagonal to this, i. e. northeast, it was nearly slate-colored.")

April 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 3

Very cold and windy

I miss my gloves left at home

the full moon to-night.

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

Sunset from Fair Haven Hill.

December 27.

Saturday.

Sunset from Fair Haven Hill.

This evening there are many clouds in the west into which the sun goes down so that we have our visible or apparent sunset and red evening sky as much as fifteen minutes before the real sunset.

You must be early on the hills to witness such a sunset, — by half past four at least.

Then all the vales, even to the horizon, are full of a purple vapor, which half veils the distant mountains, and the windows of undiscoverable farmhouses shine like an early candle or a fire.

After the sun has gone behind a cloud, there appears to be a gathering of clouds around his setting, and for a few moments his light in the amber sky seems more intense, brighter, and purer than at noonday.

I think you never see such a brightness in the noon day heavens as in the western sky sometimes, just before the sun goes down in clouds, like the ecstasy which we are told sometimes lights up the face of a dying man.

That is a serene or evening death, like the end of the day.

Then, at last, through all the grossness which has accumulated in the atmosphere of day, is seen a patch of serene sky fairer by contrast with the surrounding dark than midday, and even the gross atmosphere of the day is gilded and made pure as amber by the setting sun, as if the day's sins were forgiven it.

The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while revolutions vex the world.

There is no winter necessarily in the sky, though the snow covers the earth.

The sky is always ready to answer to our moods; we can see summer there or winter.

Snow and drifts on the earth; it swiftly descends from the heavens and leaves them pure.

The heavens present, perhaps, pretty much the same aspect summer and winter.

It is remarkable that the sun rarely goes down without a cloud.

Venus - I suppose it is - is now the evening star, and very bright she is immediately after sunset in the early twilight.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 27, 1851

You must be early on the hills to witness such a sunset, — by half past four at least. See December 23, 1851 ("I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it.") See also  January 20, 1852 ("The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; The Days have grown Sensibly Longer

Fair Haven Hill. See July 27, 1852 ("On Fair Haven Hill. . . .All the clouds in the sky are now close to the west horizon, so that the sun is nearly down before they are reached and lighted or gilded. . . . The sun is now set. All glow on the clouds is gone, except from one higher, small, rosy pink isle. The solemnity of the evening sky! Just before the earliest star I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds which have gathered."); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”); February 21, 1855 (“I look at the Peterboro mountains with my glass from Fair Haven Hill. I think that there can be no more arctic scene than these mountains in the edge of the horizon completely crusted over with snow, with the sun shining on them.”); October 7, 1857 (" When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape. . . I think that Concord affords no better view.”); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.")

The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset. See December 20, 1851( Sunset in winter from a clearing in the woods."); December 21, 1851 ("How swiftly the earth appears to revolve at sunset."); December 23, 1851 ("I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it . . . having got home , I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and . . . just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon."); December 25, 1851 ("I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand? whether it will go down in clouds or a clear sky?"); January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer.")

There is no winter necessarily in the sky. . . we can see summer there or winter.. . .The heavens present, perhaps, pretty much the same aspect summer and winter. Compare December 31, 1851 ("Consider in what respects the winter sunsets differ from the summer ones "); December 31, 1851 (“I have not enough valued and attended to the pure clarity and brilliancy of the winter skies. . . . The day sky in winter corresponds for clarity to the night sky, in which the stars shine and twinkle so brightly in this latitude.”); January 1, 1852 ("The stars of higher magnitude are more bright and dazzling, and therefore appear more near and numerable, while those that appear indistinct and infinitely remote in the summer, imparting the impression of unfathomability to the sky, are scarcely seen at all. . . .These are some of the differences between this and the autumn or summer nights . . . the dazzle and seeming nearness of the stars."); January 17, 1852 (“sunset these winter days . . . is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer.") January 22, 1854 ("Once or twice of late I have seen the mother-o'-pearl tints and rainbow flocks in the western sky.. . .Methinks the summer sky never exhibits this so finely. "); January 29, 1854 ("Tonight I feel it stinging cold . . .; it bites my ears and face, but the stars shine all the brighter.”); February 3, 1852 ("The heavens appear less thickly starred than in summer, - rather a few bright stars, brought nearer by this splendid twinkling in the cold sky.")March 20, 1852 ("the stars twinkle as in winter night.")

Venus is now the evening star, and very bright she is immediately after sunset in the early twilight See  December 27, 1853 ("It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon. The evening star is seen shining brightly, before the twilight has begun. A rosy tint suffuses the eastern horizon.") 

A TRUE WINTER SUNSET December 27, 2017

The sky is always ready to answer to our moods. See January 17, 1852. ("As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind."); January 26, 1852. ("Would you see your mind, look at the sky.")

We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, — clear white light.

November 2


What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing within her?

Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which she shows most beautiful.

P. M. – To Walden and Flint’s.

What are those sparrows in loose flocks which I have seen two or three weeks, — some this afternoon on the railroad causeway, — with small heads and rather long necks in proportion to body, which is longish and slender, yellowish-white or olivaceous breast, striped with dark, ashy sides of neck, whitish over and beneath the eye, and some white observed in tail when they fly ? I think a dark bill and legs.

They utter a peculiar note, not heard here at other seasons, somewhat like the linarias, a sort of shuffling or chuckling iche-tche tche-tche, quickly uttered.

Can they be the grass-bird ? They resemble it in marking. They are much larger than the tree sparrows. Methinks it is a very common fall bird.

C. says he saw succory yesterday, and a loon on the pond the 30th ult.

The prinos berries are almost gone.

I am somewhat surprised to find that the Aster undulatus at Walden is killed by the frost; only one low and obscure one has any flowers left.

Therefore, though it is the latest aster that is abundant, I am not sure that it lasts absolutely longer than the A. puniceus, or even Tradescanti.

I see no other flowers on the Peak.

Poke berries there are still partly green, partly ripe, as usual.

The leaves of the umbelled pyrola are as glossy as in the spring, which proves that they do not owe their glossiness in the spring to the influence of that season.

Two ducks on Walden.

The Canada snap dragon is still fresh and in flower by roadside near pond, and a sprig from root of Solidago nemoralis.

I gather some fine large pignuts by the wall (near the beech trees) on Baker's land. It is just the time to get these, and this seems to be quite early enough for most pignuts.

I find that there have been plenty of beechnuts, and there are still some empty burs on the trees and many nuts on the ground, but I cannot find one with meat in it.

The beech leaves have all fallen except some about the lower part of the trees, and they make a fine thick bed on the ground.  They are very beautiful, firm, and perfect leaves, unspotted and not eaten by insects, of a handsome, clear leather color, like a book bound in calf. Crisp and elastic; no wonder they make beds of them.

Of a clear [space left in manuscript ] or leather-color, more or less dark and remarkably free from stains and imperfections.

They cover the ground so perfectly and cleanly as to tempt you to recline on it and admire the beauty of their smooth boles from that position, covered with lichens of various colors-green, etc. — which you think you never see elsewhere.

They impress you as full of health and vigor, so that their bark can hardly contain their spirits but lies in folds or wrinkles about their ankles like a sock, with the embonpoint of infancy, wrinkles of fat.

The pollen [sic] of the Lycopodium dendroideum falls in showers or in clouds when my foot strikes it. How long? 

The witch-hazel appears to be nearly out of bloom, most of the flowers withering or frost-bitten.

The shrub oak cups which I notice to-day have lost their acorns.

I examined a squirrel's nest in a tree which suggested to me(it having a foundation of twigs, coarse basketwork; above, shreds or fibres of bark and a few leaves) that perchance the squirrel, like the mouse, sometimes used a deserted bird's nest,-a crow's or hawk' .

A red-tailed hawk.

Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four, — the minute red buds of the panicled andromeda, the roundish plump ones of the common hazel, the longish sharp ones of the witch-hazel, etc.

The sun sets.

We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, the air being purer, — clear white light, which penetrates the woods,-is seen through the woods, — the leaves being gone.

When the sun is set, there is no sudden contrast, no deep darkening, but a clear, strong white light still prevails, and the west finally glows with a generally diffused and moderate saffron-golden (?).

Coming home by boat the other evening, I smelled a traveller's pipe very strongly a third of a mile distant. He was crossing Wood ' s Bridge.

The evening star is now very bright; and is that Jupiter near it?

 I might put by themselves the November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf.

I see hedge-mustard very fresh.

Those plants which are earliest in the spring have already made the most conspicuous preparation for that season. The skunk-cabbage spathes have started, the alder catkins, as I have said, hazel, etc.; and is there anything in the double scales of the maples, the prominent scales of willow and other catkins, sometimes burst (?) ? 

A part of the lambkill is turned dull-reddish.

The last two, this and yesterday, fine days, but not gossamer ones. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 2, 1853

Can they be the grass-bird? See October 3, 1860 ("I have seen and heard sparrows in flocks, more as if flitting by, within a week, or since the frosts began.); October 11, 1856 ("Bay-wing sparrows numerous."); October 12, 1859 ("I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences."); October 16, 1855 ("I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book"); October 23, 1853 ("And many birds flit before me along the railroad, with faint notes, too large for linarias. . . .Probably the white-in-tail [i. e. vesper sparrow, or grass finch.]")

We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, the air being purer, — clear white light, which penetrates the woods. See October 25, 1858 (“Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light.”); October 27, 1858 (“the cool, white twilights of that season which is itself the twilight of the year.”); November 1, 1858 ("The November twilights just begun!"); November 14, 1853 (" This [October] light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November.")  November 17, 1858 ("The setting sun, too, is reflected from windows more brightly than at any other season. “November Lights" would be a theme for me.");   November 20, 1858 ("The glory of November is in its silvery, sparkling lights”) See also  note to November 10, 1858 ("The warmer colors are now rare. A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one; all the light of November may be called an afterglow.")

Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four, See November 6, 1853 ("The plump, roundish, club-shaped, well-protected buds of the alders, and rich purplish or mulberry catkins, three, four, or five together.")

The Canada snap dragon is still fresh and in flower by roadside near pond. See August 21, 1851 ("Canada snap dragon by roadside (not conspicuous).")

The last two, this and yesterday, fine days, but not gossamer ones. See November 1, 1860 ("A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm. 72+ at 1 P. M. . . .Gossamer on the withered grass is shimmering in the fields, and flocks of it are sailing in the air."); November 19, 1853 ('This is a very pleasant and warm Indian-summer afternoon. Methinks we have not had one like it since October.

This, too, is a gossamer day, though it is not particularly calm.") See also note to November 3, 1857 ("It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

The November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf. See November 10, 1858 (" Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost."); November 5, 1855 (“I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers. ”); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.”).; November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse, etc.,")

November 2. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 2 

November twilight,

clear white light seen through the woods —

the leaves being gone.

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 © 2009-2025

There are but us three, the moon, the earth and myself.

 August 12

August 12, 2018

Tuesday. 1.30 A. M. — Full moon.

Arose and went to the river and bathed, stepping very carefully not to disturb the household, and still carefully in the street not to disturb the neighbors. I did not walk naturally and freely till I had got over the wall.

Then to Hubbard’s Bridge at 2 A. M.

There was a whip-poor-will in the road just beyond Goodwin’s, which flew up and lighted on the fence and kept alighting on the fence within a rod of me and circling round me with a slight squeak as if inquisitive about me.

I do not remember what I observed or thought in coming hither.

The traveller’s whole employment is to calculate what cloud will obscure the moon and what she will triumph over.

In the after-midnight hours the traveller’s sole companion is the moon.

All his thoughts are centred in her.

She is waging continual war with the clouds in his behalf.

What cloud will enter the lists with her next, this employs his thoughts; and when she enters on a clear field of great extent in the heavens, and shines unobstructedly, he is glad.

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.

But if he sees that she has many new clouds to contend with, he pursues his way moodily, as one disappointed and aggrieved; he resents it as an injury to himself.

It is his employment to watch the moon, the companion and guide of his journey, wading through clouds, and calculate what one is destined to shut out her cheering light.

He traces her course, now almost completely obscured, through the ranks of her foes, and calculates where she will issue from them.

He is disappointed and saddened when he sees that she has many clouds to contend with.

Sitting on the sleepers of Hubbard’s Bridge, which is being repaired, now, 3 o’clock A. M., I hear a cock crow.

How admirably adapted to the dawn is that sound! as if made by the first rays of light rending the darkness, the creaking of the sun’s axle heard already over the eastern hills.

Though man’s life is trivial and handselled, Nature is holy and heroic.

With what infinite faith and promise and moderation begins each new day! 

It is only a little after 3 o’clock, and already there is evidence of morning in the sky. 

He rejoices when the moon comes forth from the squadrons of the clouds unscathed and there are no more any obstructions in her path, and the cricket also seems to express joy in his song.

It does not concern men who are asleep in their beds, but it is very important to the traveller, whether the moon shines bright and unobstructed or is obscured by clouds.

It is not easy to realize the serene joy of all the earth when the moon commences to shine unobstructedly, unless you have often been a traveller by night.

The traveller also resents it if the wind rises and rustles the leaves or ripples the water and increases the coolness at such an hour.

A solitary horse in his pasture was scared by the sudden sight of me, an apparition to him, standing still in the moonlight, and moved about, inspecting with alarm, but I spoke and he heard the sound of my voice; he was at once reassured and expressed his pleasure by wagging his stump of a tail, though still half a dozen rods off.

How wholesome the taste of huckleberries, when now by moonlight I feel for them amid the bushes!

And now the first signs of morning attract the traveller’s attention, and he cannot help rejoicing, and the moon begins gradually to fade from his recollection.

The wind rises and rustles the copses.

The sand is cool on the surface but warm two or three inches beneath, and the rocks are quite warm to the hand, so that he sits on them or leans against them for warmth, though indeed it is not cold elsewhere.

As I walk along the side of Fair Haven Hill, I see a ripple on the river, and now the moon has gone behind a large and black mass of clouds, and I realize that I may not see her again in her glory this night, that perchance ere she rises from this obscurity, the sun will have risen, and she will appear but as a cloud herself, and sink unnoticed into the west (being a little after full (a day?)).

As yet no sounds of awakening men; only the more frequent crowing of cocks, still standing on their perches in the barns.

The milkmen are the earliest risers, — though I see no lan-thorns carried to their barns in the distance, – preparing to carry the milk of cows in their tin cans for men’s breakfasts, even for those who dwell in distant cities.

In the twilight now, by the light of the stars alone, the moon being concealed, they are pressing the bounteous streams from full udders into their milk-pails, and the sound of the streaming milk is all that breaks the sacred stillness of the dawn; distributing their milk to such as have no cows.

I perceive no mosquitoes now.

Are they vespertinal, like the singing of the whip-poor-will? 

I see the light of the obscured moon reflected from the river brightly.

With what mild emphasis Nature marks the spot! — so bright and serene a sheen that does not more contrast with the night.

4 A. M. — It adds a charm, a dignity, a glory, to the earth to see the light of the moon reflected from her streams.

There are but us three, the moon, the earth which wears this jewel (the moon’s reflection) in her crown, and myself.

Now there has come round the Cliff (on which I sit), which faces the west, all unobserved and mingled with the dusky sky of night, a lighter and more ethereal living blue, whispering of the sun still far, far away, behind the horizon.

From the summit of our atmosphere, perchance, he may already be seen by soaring spirits that inhabit those thin upper regions, and they communicate the glorious intelligence to us lower ones.

The real divine, the heavenly, blue, the Jove-containing air, it is, I see through this dusky lower stratum.

The sun gilding the summits of the air.

The broad artery of light flows over all the sky.

Yet not without sadness and compassion I reflect that I shall not see the moon again in her glory.

(Not far from four, still in the night, I heard a nighthawk squeak and boom, high in the air, as I sat on the Cliff. What is said about this being less of a night bird than the whip-poor-will is perhaps to be questioned. For neither do I remember to have heard the whip-poor-will sing at 12 o’clock, though I met one sitting and flying between two and three this morning. I believe that both may be heard at midnight, though very rarely.) 

Now at very earliest dawn the nighthawk booms and the whip-poor-will sings.

Returning down the hill by the path to where the woods [are] cut off, I see the signs of the day, the morning red.

There is the lurid morning star, soon to be blotted out by a cloud.

There is an early redness in the east which I was not prepared for, changing to amber or saffron, with clouds beneath in the horizon and also above this clear streak.

The birds utter a few languid and yawning notes, as if they had not left their perches, so sensible to light to wake so soon, — a faint peeping sound from I know not what kind, a slight, innocent, half-awake sound, like the sounds which a quiet housewife makes in the earliest dawn.

Nature preserves her innocence like a beautiful child.

I hear a wood thrush even now, long before sunrise, as in the heat of the day.

And the pewee and the catbird and the vireo, red-eyed? 

I do not hear— or do not mind, perchance — the crickets now. 

Now whip-poor-wills commence to sing in earnest, considerably after the wood thrush.

The wood thrush, that beautiful singer, inviting the day once more to enter his pine woods.

(So you may hear the wood thrush and whip-poor-will at the same time.) 

Now go by two whip-poor-wills, in haste seeking some coverts from the eye of day.

And the bats are flying about on the edge of the wood, improving the last moments of their day in catching insects.

The moon appears at length, not yet as a cloud, but with a frozen light, ominous of her fate.

The early cars sound like a wind in the woods.

The chewinks make a business now of waking each other up with their low yorrick in the neighboring low copse.

The sun would have shown before but for the cloud.

Now, on his rising, not the clear sky, but the cheeks of the clouds high and wide, are tinged with red, which, like the sky before, turns gradually to saffron and then to the white light of day.

The nettle-leaved vervain (Verbena urticifolia) by roadside at Emerson’s.

What we have called hemp answers best to Urtica dioica, large stinging nettle? 

Now the great sunflower’s golden disk is seen.

The days for some time have been sensibly shorter; there is time for music in the evening.

I see polygonums in blossom by roadside, white and red.

A eupatorium from Hubbard’s Bridge causeway answers to E. purpureum, except in these doubtful points, that the former has four leaves in a whorl, is unequally serrate, the stem is nearly filled with a thin pith, the corymb is not merely terminal, florets eight and nine.

Differs from verticillatum in the stem being not solid, and I perceive no difference between calyx and corolla in color, if I know what the two are. It may be one of the intermediate varieties referred to

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 12, 1851



1.30 A. M. — Full moon. Arose and went to the river. See July 16, 1850 ("Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season..")

There are but us three, the moon, the earth and myself.  See May 16, 1851 (" In the moonlight night what intervals are created! . . . There may be only three objects, — myself, a pine tree, and the moon, nearly equidistant."); September 22, 1854 ("By moonlight all is simple. We are enabled to erect ourselves, our minds, on account of the fewness of objects. We are no longer distracted."); See also August 5, 1851 ("Moonlight is like a cup of cold water to a thirsty man. As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where. I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment and I see who the company are. "); July 26, 1852 ("My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.")

It is his employment to watch the moon, the companion and guide of his journey, wading through clouds, and calculate what one is destined to shut out her cheering light. See June 1, 1852 (".The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights")

Now, 3 o’clock A. M., I hear a cock crow. How admirably adapted to the dawn is that sound! as if made by the first rays of light. See July 18, 1851 ("Have you knowledge of the morning ? Do you sympathize with that season of nature? Are you abroad early, brushing the dews aside ? If the sun rises on you slumbering, if you do not hear the morning cock-crow, if you do not witness the blushes of Aurora, if you are not acquainted with Venus as the morning star, what relation have you to wisdom and purity? "); February 25, 1859 ("Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, — if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you,— know that the morning and spring of your life are past.")

She will appear but as a cloud herself, and sink unnoticed into the west. See April 30, 1852 ("Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes. Such a sight excites me. The earth is worthy to inhabit.")

There are but us three –

the moon, the earth and myself

(the moon’s reflection).

First signs of morning 

and the moon begins to fade 

from recollection.

The wood thrush, singer, 

invites the day once more to 

enter his pine woods.

The earth is yellowing in the September sun

September 18. 

P. M. — Sail to Fair Haven Pond. 

It is a fine September day. The river is still rising on account of the rain of the 16th and is getting pretty well over the meadows. As we paddle westward, toward College Meadow, I perceive that a new season has come. 

The air is incredibly clear. The surface of both land and water is bright, as if washed by the recent rain and then seen through a much finer, clearer, and cooler air. The surface of the river sparkles. 

I am struck by the soft yellow-brown or brown-yellow of the black willows, stretching in cloud-shaped wreaths far away along the edges of the stream, of a so much mellower and maturer tint than the elms and oaks and most other trees seen above and beyond them. 

It is remarkable that the button-bushes beneath and mingling with them are of exactly the same tint and in perfect harmony with them. They are like two interrupted long brown-yellow masses of verdure resting on the water, a peculiarly soft and warm yellow. This is, perhaps, the most interesting autumnal tint as yet. 

Above the railroad bridge, with our sail set, wind north-northwest, we see two small ducks, dusky, —— perhaps dippers, or summer ducks, — and sail within four rods before they fly. They are so tame that for a while we take them for tame ducks. 

The pads are drowned by the flood, but I see one pontederia spike rising blue above the surface. Elsewhere the dark withered pontederia leaves show themselves, and at a distance look like ducks, and so help conceal them. For the ducks are now back again in numbers, since the storm and freshet. We can just go over the ammannia meadow. 

It is a wonderful day. 

As I look westward, this fine air — “gassy,” C. calls it — brings out the grain of the hills. I look into the distant sod. This air and sun, too, bring out all the yellow that is in the herbage. The very grass or sedge of the meadow is the same soft yellow with the willows, and the button-bush harmonizes with them. It is as if the earth were one ripe fruit, like a muskmelon yellowed in the September sun; i. e., the sedges, being brought between me and the sun, are seen to be ripe like the cucumbers and muskmelons in the garden. 

The earth is yellowing in the September sun. 

It occurs to me to put my knee on it, press it gently, and hear if it does not crack within as if ripe. Has it not, too, a musty fragrance, as a melon? 

At Clamshell we take the wind again, and away we glide. I notice, along the edge of the eastern meadow wood, some very light-colored and crisped-looking leaves, apparently on small maples, or else swamp white oaks, as if some vine ran over the trees, for the leaves are of a different color from the rest. This must be the effect of frost, I think. 

The sedge and wool-grass all slant strongly southward or up the stream now, which makes a strange impression on the sailor, but of late the wind has been north and stronger than the sluggish current of the river. 

The small white pines on the side of Fair Haven Hill now look remarkably green, by contrast with the surrounding shrubbery, which is recently imbrowned. You are struck by their distinct liquid green, as if they had but just sprung up there. 

All bright colors seem brighter now for the same reason, i. e. from contrast with the duller browns and russets. The very cows on the hill side are a brighter red amid the pines and the brown' hazels. 

The perfectly fresh spike of the Polygonum amphibium attracts every eye now. It is not past its prime. C. thinks it is exactly the color of some candy. 

Also the Polygala sanguiuea on the bank looks redder than usual. 

Many red maples are now partly turned dark crimson along the meadow-edge. 

Near the pond we scare up twenty or thirty ducks, and at the pond three blue herons. They are of a hoary blue. One flies afar and alights on a limb of a large white pine near Well Meadow Head, bending it down. I see him standing there with outstretched neck. 

Finding grapes, we proceeded to pluck them, tempted more by their fragrance and color than their flavor, though some were very palatable. We gathered many without getting out of the boat, as we paddled back, and more on shore close to the water’s edge, piling them up in the prow of the boat till they reached to the top of the boat, — a long sloping heap of them and very handsome to behold, being of various colors and sizes, for we even added green ones for variety. Some, however, were mainly green when ripe. You cannot touch some vines without bringing down more single grapes in a shower around you than you pluck in bunches, and such as strike the water are lost, for they do not float. But it is a pity to break the handsome clusters. Thus laden, the evening air wafting the fragrance of the cargo back to us, we paddled homeward. 

The cooler air is so clear that we see Venus plainly some time before sundown. The wind had all gone down, and the water was perfectly smooth. The sunset was uncommonly fair. 

Some long amber clouds in the horizon, all on fire with gold, were more glittering than any jewelry. An Orient city to adorn the plates of an annual could not be contrived or imagined more gorgeous. 

And when you looked with head inverted the effect was increased tenfold, till it seemed a world of enchantment. We only regretted that it had not a due moral effect on us scapegraces. 

Nevertheless, when, turning my head, I looked at the willowy edge of Cyanean Meadow and onward to the sober-colored but fine-grained Clamshell Hills, about which there was no glitter, I was inclined to think that the truest beauty was that which surrounded us but which we failed to discern, that the forms and colors which adorn our daily life, not seen afar in the horizon, are our fairest jewelry. The beauty of Clamshell Hill, near at hand, with its sandy ravines, in which the cricket chirps. This is an Occidental city, not less glorious than that we dream of in the sunset sky. 

It chanced that all the front-rank polygonum, with its rosaceous spikes, was drowned by the flood, but now, the sun having for some time set, with our backs to the west we saw the light reflected from the slender clear white spikes of the P. hydropiperoides (now in its prime), which in large patches or masses rise about a foot above the surface of the water and the other polygonum. Under these circumstances this polygonum was very pretty and interesting, only its more presentable part I rising above the water. 

Mr. Warren brings to me three kinds of birds which he has shot on the Great Meadows this afternoon, viz. two Totanus flavipes, such as I saw the 8th (there were eight in the flock, and he shot seven), one Rallus Carolinus, and one peetweet. I doubt if I have seen any but the T. flavipes here, since I have measured this.[Or very likely I have. Vide 25th.] Wilson says that this does not penetrate far inland, though he sees them near Philadelphia after a northeast storm. 

The above rail corresponds to the land rail or corn crake of Europe in form and habits. In Virginia is called the sora; in South Carolina, the coot. It is the game rail of the South, and the only species of the genus Crex in America. Note kuk kuk kuk. Go to Hudson’s Bay and thereabouts to breed. This was a male, having a black throat and black about base of bill. Peabody says that they are seen here only in the autumn on their return from the north, though Brewer thinks their nest may be found here. In the genus Crex, the bill is stout and shorter than the head. In Rallus (as in R. Virginianus), it is longer than the head and slender. In the latter, too, the crown and whole upper parts are black, streaked with brown; the throat, breast, and belly, orange-brown; sides and vent, black tipped with white; legs and feet, dark red-brown; none of which is true of the R. Carolinus. 

I notice that the wing of the peetweet, which is about two inches wide, has a conspicuous and straight-edged white bar along its middle on the under side for half its length. It is seven eighths of an inch wide and, being quite parallel with the darker parts of the wing, it produces that singular effect in its flying which I have noticed. This line, by the way, is not mentioned by Wilson, yet it is, perhaps, the most noticeable mark of the bird when flying! The under side of the wings is commonly slighted in the description, though it is at least as often seen by us as the upper. Wilson says that “the whole lower parts are beautifully marked with roundish spots of black, . . . but the young are pure white be low.” May I not have made the young the T. solitarius? But the young are white-spotted on wings. 

I think that I see a white-throated sparrow this after noon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 18, 1858

It is a fine September day. The air is incredibly clear. The surface of both land and water is bright. . .seen through a much finer, clearer, and cooler air. The surface of the river sparkles. . . .It is a wonderful day"); September 18, 1860 ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow."); September 22, 1854 ("As I look off from the hilltop, wonder if there are any finer days in the year than these. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Finding grapes, we proceeded to pluck them, tempted more by their fragrance and color than their flavor,piling them up in the prow of the boat till they reached to the top of the boat, — the evening air wafting the fragrance of the cargo back to us, we paddled homeward . See September 8, 1854 ("As I paddle home with my basket of grapes in the bow, every now and then their perfume was wafted to me in the stern, and I think that I am passing a richly laden vine on shore."); September 13, 1856 ("The best are more admirable for fragrance than for flavor. Depositing them in the bows of the boat, they fill all the air with their fragrance, as we row along against the wind, as if we were rowing through an endless vineyard in its maturity. ")

Some long amber clouds in the horizon, all on fire with gold, were more glittering than any jewelry. And when you looked with head inverted the effect was increased tenfold, till it seemed a world of enchantment. See January 8, 1854 ("Gilpin, in his essay on the "Art of Sketching Landscape," says: "When you have finished your sketch . . . tinge the whole over with some light horizon hue." . . .I have often been attracted by this harmonious tint in his and other drawings, and sometimes, especially, have observed it in nature when at sunset I inverted my head.")

Nevertheless, when, turning my head, . . .I was inclined to think that the truest beauty was that which surrounded us but which we failed to discern, that the forms and colors which adorn our daily life, not seen afar in the horizon, are our fairest jewelry. See June 21, 1852 ("The perception of beauty is a moral test."); May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world"); May 17, 1853 ("Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds — that partakes of the light of the day and the stillness of the night");  ;December 11. 1855 ("It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance."); Autumnal Tints ("There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate")

The cooler air is so clear that we see Venus plainly some time before sundown. See February 3, 1852 ("Venus is now like a little moon in the west,"); May 8, 1852 ("Venus is the evening star and the only star yet visible"); December 27, 1853 ("It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon. The evening star is seen shining brightly, before the twilight has begun")

September 18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, September 18

A wonderful day.  

The earth is yellowing in 

the September sun.

All bright colors seem 

brighter now from contrast with 

the browns and russets.

The air is so clear 

we see Venus plainly some 

time before sundown.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The earth yellowing in the September sun

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/HDT-540918

The snow-storm is over

December 23

December 23, 2016

This morning, when I woke, I found it snowing, the snow fine and driving almost horizontally, as if it had set in for a long storm, but a little after noon it ceased snowing and began to clear up, and I set forth for a walk. 

The snow which we have had for the last week or ten days has been remarkably light and dry. It is pleasant walking in the woods now, when the sun is just coming out and shining on the woods freshly covered with snow. 

At a distance the oak woods look very venerable. A fine, hale, wintry aspect things wear, and the pines, all snowed up, even suggest comfort. Where boughs cross each other much snow is caught, which now in all woods is gradually tumbling down. 

By half past three the sun is fairly out. I go to the Cliffs. There is a narrow ridge of snow, a white line, on the storm side of the stem of every exposed tree. 

I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it. 

Already a few clouds are glowing like a golden sierra just above the horizon. From a low arch the clear sky has rapidly spread eastward over the whole heavens, and the sun shines serenely, and the air is still, and the spotless snow covers the fields. The snow-storm is over, the clouds have departed, the sun shines serenely, the air is still, a pure and trackless white napkin covers the ground, and a fair evening is coming to conclude all. 

Gradually the sun sinks, the air grows more dusky, and I perceive that if it were not for the light reflected from the snow it would be quite dark. The woodchopper has started for home. I can no longer distinguish the color of the red oak leaves against the snow, but they appear black. The partridges have come forth to bud on the apple trees. 

Now the sun has quite disappeared, but the afterglow, as I may call it, apparently the reflection from the cloud beyond which the sun went down on the thick atmosphere of the horizon, is unusually bright and lasting. Long, broken clouds in the horizon, in the dun atmosphere, — as if the fires of day were still smoking there, — hang with red and golden edging like the saddle cloths of the steeds of the sun. 

December 23, 2018

Now all the clouds grow black, and I give up to-night; but unexpectedly, half an hour later when I look out, having got home, I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red, — that dun atmosphere instead of clouds reflecting the sun, — and I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 23, 1851

This morning, when I woke, I found it snowing, the snow fine and driving almost horizontally, as if it had set in for a long storm. See December 23, 1850 ("Here is an old-fashioned snow-storm.")  See also December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face”)

There is a narrow ridge of snow, a white line, on the storm side of the stem of every exposed tree. See January 5, 1852 ("To-day the trees are white with snow . . . and have the true wintry look, on the storm side. Not till this has the winter come to the forest.”);  December 27, 1853 (“there is a white ridge up and down their trunks on the northwest side, showing which side the storm came from, which, better than the moss, would enable one to find his way in the night.”); February 21, 1854 (“The snow has lodged more or less in perpendicular lines on the northerly sides of trees”); December 26, 1855 (“The ice is chiefly on the upper and on the storm side of twigs”); January 14, 1856 ("I think that you can best tell from what side the storm came by observing on which side of the trees the snow is plastered."); January 27, 1856 ("The lodging snow of January 13th, just a fortnight ago, still adheres in deep and conspicuous ridges to large exposed trees, too stubborn to be shaken by the wind, showing from which side the storm came.")

I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it. See December 23, 1859 ("I ascended Ball's Hill to see the sun set. How red its light at this hour!")

The woodchopper has started for home. See· December 15, 1856 (“the last strokes of the woodchopper, who presently bends his steps homeward; ”)

The evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red and just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.  See  January 23, 1852 ("And the new moon and the evening star, close together, preside over the twilight scene”); January 24, 1852 (“And now the crescent of the moon is seen, and her attendant star is farther off than last night.”); February  3, 1852 ("The moon is nearly full tonight, and the moment is passed when the light in the east (i. e. of the moon) balances the light in the west. Venus is now like a little moon in the west,"); June 15, 1852 ("The evening star, multiplied by undulating water, is like bright sparks of fire continually ascending. "); July 27, 1852 ("All glow on the clouds is gone, except from one higher, small, rosy pink isle. The solemnity of the evening sky! Just before the earliest star I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds which have gathered.”)

December 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 23

The storm is over –

trackless snow covers the fields

and the air is still.

Walking in the woods

the sun just coming out and

shining on fresh snow

a narrow white line

of snow on the storm side of

every exposed tree.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The snow-storm is over

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-511223