These are afternoons when you expect a thunder-shower before night.

May 29

May 29, 2015

These last two days, with their sultry, hazy air, are the first that suggest the expression “the furnace-like heat.”

Bathing has begun.

In the evening and during the night the ring of the toads fills the air, so that some have to shut the windows toward the river, but when you awake in the morning not one is to be heard. As it grows warmer in the forenoon I hear a few again; but still I do not hear them numerously and loudly as earlier in the season at that hour, though far more numerously and loudly at night.

P. M. - To Hosmer's Holden place.

Thimble-berry two or three days.

Cattle stand in the river by the bridge for coolness.

Place my hat lightly on my head that the air may circulate beneath.

Wild roses budded before you know it — will be out often before you know they are budded.

Fields are whitened with mouse-ear gone to seed 

—a mass of white fuzz blowing off one side — and also with dandelion globes of seeds.

Some plants have already reached their fall.

How still the hot noon; people have retired behind blinds.

Yet the kingbird — lively bird, with white belly and tail edged with white, and with its lively twittering— stirs and keeps the air brisk.

I see men and women through open windows in white undress taking their Sunday-afternoon nap, overcome with heat.

At A. Hosmer's hill on the Union Turnpike I see the tanager hoarsely warbling in the shade; the surprising red bird, a small morsel of Brazil, advanced picket of that Brazilian army, — parrot-like. But no more shall we see; it is only an affair of outposts. It appears as if he loved to contrast himself with the green of the forest.

May 29, 2024

These are afternoons when you expect a thunder-shower before night; the outlines of cloudy cumuli are dimly seen through the hazy, furnace-like air, rising in the west.

Spergularia rubra, spurry sandwort, in the roadside ditch on left just beyond A. Hosmer's hill; also Veronica peregrina (?) a good while. The last also in Great Fields in the path.

Raspberry out.

That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention.

The barrenest pastures wear now a green and luxuriant aspect.

I see many of those round, white, pigeon-egg fungi in the grass since the rains. Do they become puffballs? 

The thyme-leaved veronica shows its modest face in little crescent-shaped regiments in every little hollow in the pastures where there is moisture, and around stumps and in the road ditches.

The Cratægus Crus-Galli this side the Holden place on left, probably yesterday, thorns three inches long, flowers with anthers not conspicuously red.

The Viola debilis near west end of Holden farm in meadow south side of road.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1853

Bathing has begun. See May 8, 1857 (“Summer has suddenly come upon us, and . . . Some boys have bathed in the river.") May 12, 1860 ("First bathe in the river. Quite warm enough."); May 15,1853 ("The weather has grown rapidly warm. I even think of bathing in the river .")

Fields are whitened with mouse-ear gone to seed — a mass of white fuzz blowing off one side — and also with dandelion globes of seeds. See May 29, 1854 ("Dandelions and mouse-ear down have been blowing for some time and are seen on water. These are interesting as methinks the first of the class of downy seeds which are more common in the fall.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Mouse-ear

That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention. See May 29, 1852 ("Blue-eyed grass [in bloom]."); May 29, 1856 (“Blue-eyed grass, probably to-morrow.”); See also 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 17. 1853 ("The dense fields of blue-eyed grass now blue the meadows, as if, in this fair season of the year, the clouds that envelop the earth were dispersing, and blue patches began to appear, answering to the blue sky. The eyes pass from these blue patches into the surrounding green as from the patches of clear sky into the clouds. "); June 19, 1853 ("I see large patches of blue-eyed grass in the meadow across the river from my window"); July 6, 1851("Blue-eyed grass is now rarely seen. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, blue-eyed grass

 

In the evening and during the night the ring of the toads fills the air.  See 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.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: The Ring of Toads

I see the tanager hoarsely warbling in the shade; the surprising red bird, a small morsel of Brazil. . .as if he loved to contrast himself with the green of the forest. See May 23, 1853 ("That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky!. . .this bird's colors and his note tell of Brazil. "); May 28, 1855 (" the most brilliant and tropical-looking bird we have, bright-scarlet with black wings, the scarlet appearing on the rump again between wing-tips. He brings heat, or heat him. A remarkable contrast with the green pines. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the  Scarlet Tanager

The Viola debilis near west end of Holden farm in meadow. See May 22, 1853 ("Found an abundance of the Viola Muhlenbergii (debilis of Bigelow), a stalked violet, pale blue and bearded"); May 22, 1856 ("To Viola Muhlenbergii, which is abundantly out; how long? A small pale-blue flower growing in dense bunches, but in spots a little drier than the V. cucullata and blanda.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

How still the hot noon; 

people retire behind blinds  –

 yet the kingbird stirs.

See men and women

through open windows undress,

overcome with heat. 

These are afternoons

when you expect a thunder-

shower before night.

Yellow birches in bloom.

May 5. 

Thursday. P.M. — To Melvin's Preserve.

             May 5, 2018                                                               May 5, 2019

 

Red-wings fly in flocks yet. 

Near the oak beyond Jarvis land, a yellow butterfly, — how hot! this meteor dancing through the air. 

Also see a scalloped-edge dark- colored butterfly resting on the trunk of a tree, where, both by its form and color, its wings being closed, it resembles a bit of bark, or rather a lichen. Evidently their forms and colors, especially of the under sides of their wings, are designed to conceal them when at rest with their wings closed. 

Am surprised to find the Viola Muhlenbergii quite abundant beyond the bayberry and near the wall. According to my observation this year, it now stands thus with the violets : the V. ovata is the commonest, but not abundant in one spot; the V. Muhlenbergii is most abundant in particular spots, coloring the hummocks with its small pale flowers; the V. blanda and cucullata are, equally, less abundant than the former, or rather rare; V. pedata and lanceolata rarer yet, or not seen. 

I noticed lately where middle-sized ants, half black and half sorrel, had completely removed the pine-needles from the crown of their large hills, leaving them bare like a mountain-top. 

Am struck by the beauty of the yellow birches, now fairly begun to be in bloom, at Yellow Birch, or Borychium, Swamp. It is perhaps the handsomest tree or shrub yet in bloom (apparently opened yesterday), of similar character to the alders and poplars, but larger and of higher color. You see a great tree all hung with long yellow or golden tassels at the end of its slender, drooping spray, in clusters at intervals of a few inches or a foot. These are all dangling and incessantly waving in the wind, — a great display of lively blossoms (lively both by their color and motion) without a particle of leaf. 

Yet they are dense enough to reveal the outline of the tree, seen against the bare twigs of itself and other trees. The tassels of this one in bloom are elongated to two or three times the length of those of another not in bloom by its side. These dancing tassels have the effect of the leaves of the tremble. Those not quite open have a rich, dark, speckled or braided look, almost equally handsome. Golden tassels all trembling in the gentlest breeze, the only signs of life on the trees. A careless observer might not notice them at all. 

The reawakened springy life of the swamp, the product of its golden veins. These graceful pendants, not in too heavy or dense masses, but thinly dispersed with a noble moderation. Great vegetable chandeliers they stand in the swamps. The unopened catkins, some more golden, others brown or coppery, are like living worms ready to assume a winged life. These trees, which cannot stir their stumps, thus annually assume this lively color and motion. 

I see and am bitten by little black flies, — I should say the same with those of Maine, — here on the Melvin Preserve. One eighth of an inch long. 

Brakes are five inches high. 

Poa annua (small and flat spreading in Pratt's garden), say a week. 

May 5, 2023

The sun sets red (first time), followed by a very hot and hazy day. 

The wilderness, in the eyes of our forefathers, was a vast and howling place or space, where a man might roam naked of house and most other defense, exposed to wild beasts and wilder men. They who went to war with the Indians and French were said to have been "out," and the wounded and missing who at length returned after a fight were said to have "got in," to Berwick or Saco, as the case might be. 

Veronica peregrina, Pratt's garden.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 5, 1859

Near the oak beyond Jarvis land, 

a yellow butterfly, — 

how hot! this meteor 

dancing through the air. 

See May 5, 1860 ("Yellow butterflies."). and Buson:

     Butterfly

sleeping

                 on the temple bell.

See also  May 22, 1856 (“A yellow butterfly over the middle of the flooded meadow.”); May 25, 1852 (“Yellow butterflies one at a time. The large yellow woods violet (V. pubescens) by this brook now out.”); September 19, 1859 ("One flutters across between the horse and the wagon safely enough, though it looks as if it would be run down.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Butterflies

Am surprised to find the Viola Muhlenbergii quite abundant beyond the bayberry and near the wall. See May 12, 1858 ("Find the Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out (how long?), in the meadow southwest of Farmer's Spring.”); May 18, 1857 (“Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long?”); May 22, 1856 (“Viola Muhlenbergii, which is abundantly out; how long? A small pale-blue flower growing in dense bunches, but in spots a little drier than the V. cucullata and blanda”); May 29, 1856 ("What a flowery place, a vale of Enna, is that [Painted Cup] meadow! Painted Cup, Erigeron bellidifolius, Thalictrum dioicum, Viola Muhlenbergii, fringed polygala, buck-bean, pedicularis, orobanche, etc., etc. Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones”)

The yellow birches, now fairly begun to be in bloom, at Yellow Birch, or Borychium, Swamp. See May 17, 1857 ("The yellow birch catkins, now fully out or a little past prime, are very handsome now, numerous clusters of rich golden catkins hanging straight down at a height from the ground on the end of the pendulous branches, amid the just expanding leaf-buds. It is like some great chandelier hung high over the underwood.”)

The sun sets red (first time), followed by a very hot and hazy day. See May 5, 1860 ("Sun goes down red."); May 4, 1860 (“The sun sets red, shorn of its beams.”); August 25, 1854 ("The sun is shorn of his beams by the haze before 5 o'clock P.M., round and red, and is soon completely concealed, apparently by the haze alone.”)

Veronica peregrina, Pratt's garden. See May 5, 1860 ("Veronica serpyllifolia, say yesterday.."). See also See May 22, 1856 ("Veronica peregrina, apparently several days.”);May 25, 1855 ("Veronica peregrina in Mackay’s strawberries, how long? “)

Preface to Autumn

August 20. 

Edward Hoar has found in his garden two or three specimens of what appears to be the Veronica Bumbaumii, which blossomed at least a month ago. Yet I should say the pods were turgid, and, though obcordate enough, I do not know in what sense they are “obcordate-triangular.” 

He found a Viburnum dentatum with leaves somewhat narrower than common and wedge shaped at base. He has also the Rudbeckia speciosa, cultivated in a Concord garden. 

Flannery tells me that at about four o’clock this morning he saw white frost on the grass in the low ground near Holbrook’s meadow. Up early enough to see a frost in August! 

P. M. — To Poplar Hill and the Great Fields. 

It is still cool weather with a northwest wind. This weather is a preface to autumn. There is more shadow in the landscape than a week ago, methinks, and the creak of the cricket sounds cool and steady. 

August 20, 2018

The grass and foliage and landscape generally are of a more thought-inspiring color, suggest what some perchance would call a pleasing melancholy. In some meadows, as I look southwesterly, the aftermath looks a bright yellowish-green in patches. 

Both willows and poplars have leaves of a light color, at least beneath, contrasting with most other trees.

Generally there has been no drought this year. Nothing in the landscape suggests it. Yet no doubt these leaves are, compared with themselves six or eight weeks ago, as usual, “horny and dry,” as one remarks by my side. 

You see them digging potatoes, with cart and barrels, in the fields on all hands, before they are fairly ripe, for fear of rot or a fall in the price, and I see the empty barrels coming back from market already. 

Polygonum dumetorum, how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 20, 1858

There is more shadow in the landscape than a week ago, methinks, and the creak of the cricket sounds cool and steady. See August 20, 1853 ("I am struck by . . .  the darkness and heaviness of the shade."); August 20, 1851 ("The song of the crickets . . . fails not in its season"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

The grass and foliage and landscape generally are of a more thought-inspiring color suggest what some perchance would call a pleasing melancholy. See August 18, 1856 ("I hear the steady shrilling of . . . the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound . . . It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy,"); August 18, 1851 ("It plainly makes men sad to think. Hence pensiveness is akin to sadness"); see also August 17, 1851 ("I feel as if this coolness would do me good. If it only makes my life more pensive! Why should pensiveness be akin to sadness? There is a certain fertile sadness which I would not avoid, but rather earnestly seek. It is positively joyful to me.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Moods and Seasons of the Mind.

In some meadows, as I look southwesterly, the aftermath looks a bright yellowish-green in patches.See July 24, 1852 ("There is a short, fresh green on the shorn fields, the aftermath. When the first crop of grass is off, and the aftermath springs, the year has passed its culmination."); July 24, 1860 ("Many a field where the grass has been cut shows now a fresh and very lit-up light green as you look toward the sun."); July 28, 1852 ("There is a yellowish light now from a low, tufted, yellowish, broad-leaved grass, in fields that have been mown."); August 7, 1852 ("At this season we have gentle rain-storms, making the aftermath green . . . as if it were a second spring."); August 10, 1854 ("As I go along the railroad, I observe the darker green of early-mown fields."); August 17, 1858 ("The aftermath on early mown fields is a very beautiful green. "); August 21, 1851 ("Mowing to some extent improves the landscape to the eye of the walker. The aftermath, so fresh and green, begins now to recall the spring to my mind")

This weather is a preface to autumn. See August 20, 1853 ("This day, too, has that autumnal character")

August 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 20

 

More shadow in the 

landscape than a week ago –

preface to autumn.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Preface to Autumn

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

One with the rocks and with me – I saw the world as through a glass, eternally.

May 12

May 12. 

How rarely I meet with a man who can be free, even in thought! We live according to rule. Some men are bedridden; all, world-ridden. 

I take my neighbor, an intellectual man, out into the woods and invite him to take a new and absolute view of things, to empty clean out of his thoughts all institutions of men and start again; but he can't do it, he sticks to his traditions and his crotchets. He thinks that governments, colleges, newspapers, etc., are from everlasting to everlasting. 

The Salix cordata var. Torreyana is distinguished by its naked ovaries more or less red-brown, with flesh- colored stigmas, with a distinct slender woolly rachis and conspicuous stalks, giving the ament a loose and open appearance. 

When I consider how many species of willow have been planted along the railroad causeway within ten years, of which no one knows the history, and not one in Concord beside myself can tell the name of one, so that it is quite a discovery to identify a single one in a year, and yet within this period the seeds of all these kinds have been conveyed from some other locality to this, I am reminded how much is going on that man wots not of. 

May 12, 2017

*****

While dropping beans in the garden at Texas just after sundown (May 13th), I hear from across the fields the note of the bay-wing, Come here here there there quick quick quick or I'm gone (which I have no doubt sits on some fence-post or rail there), and it instantly translates me from the sphere of my work and repairs all the world that we jointly inhabit. 

It reminds me of so many country afternoons and evenings when this bird's strain was heard far over the fields, as I pursued it from field to field. 

The spirit of its earth-song, of its serene and true philosophy, was breathed into me, and I saw the world as through a glass, as it lies eternally. 

Some of its aboriginal contentment, even of its domestic felicity, possessed me. What he suggests is permanently true. 

As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. In the beginning God heard his song and pronounced it good, and hence it has endured. 

It reminded me of many a summer sunset, of many miles of gray rails, of many a rambling pasture, of the farmhouse far in the fields, its milk-pans and well-sweep, and the cows coming home from pasture. 

I would thus from time to time take advice of the birds, correct my human views by listening to their volucral (?). 

He is a brother poet, this small gray bird (or bard), whose muse inspires mine. His lay is an idyl or pastoral, older and sweeter than any that is classic. He sits on some gray perch like himself, on a stake, perchance, in the midst of the field, and you can hardly see him against the plowed ground. You advance step by step as the twilight deepens, and lo! he is gone, and in vain you strain your eyes to see whither, but anon his tinkling strain is heard from some other quarter. 

One with the rocks and with us. 

Methinks I hear these sounds, have these reminiscences, only when well employed, at any rate only when I have no reason to be ashamed of my employment. I am often aware of a certain compensation of this kind for doing something from a sense of duty, even unconsciously. 

Our past experience is a never-failing capital which can never be alienated, of which each kindred future event reminds us. 

If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day. 

I ordinarily plod along a sort of whitewashed prison entry, subject to some indifferent or even grovelling mood. I do not distinctly realize my destiny. I have turned down my light to the merest glimmer and am doing some task which I have set myself. I take incredibly narrow views, live on the limits, and have no recollection of absolute truth. Mushroom institutions hedge me in. 

But suddenly, in some fortunate moment, the voice of eternal wisdom reaches me even, in the strain of the sparrow, and liberates me, whets and clarifies my senses, makes me a competent witness. 

*****

The second amelanchier out, in garden. Some fir balsams, as Cheney's. Is not ours in the grove, with the chip-bird's nest in it, the Abies Fraseri? Its cones are short. I hear of, and also find, a ground-bird's (song sparrow's) nest with five eggs. 

P. M. — To Miles Swamp, Conantum. I hear a yorrick, apparently anxious, near me, utter from time to time a sharp grating char-r-r, like a fine watchman's rattle. As usual, I have not heard them sing yet. 

A night-warbler, plainly light beneath. It always flies to a new perch immediately after its song. 

Hear the screep of the parti-colored warbler. 

Veronica serpyllifolia is abundantly out at Corner Spring. 

As I go along the hillside toward Miles Swamp, I mistake the very light gray cliff-sides east of the river at Bittern Cliff for amelanchier in bloom. 

The brother of Edward Garfield (after dandelions!) tells me that two years ago, when he was cutting wood at Bittern Cliff in the winter, he saw something dark squatting on the ice, which he took to be a mink, and taking a stake he went to inspect it. It turned out to be a bird, a new kind of duck, with a long, slender, pointed bill (he thought red). It moved off backwards, hissing at him, and he threw his stake about a rod and partly broke its neck, then killed it. It was very lean and the river was nowhere open. He sent it to Waltham and sold it for twenty-five cents.

Black ash, maybe a day. Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum.

I see a whitish cocoon on a small carpinus. It is artfully made where there is a short crook in the main stem, so as to just fill the hollow and make an even surface, the stick forming one side.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 12, 1857

When I consider how many species of willow have been planted along the railroad causeway within ten years, of which no one knows the history. See April 9, 1853 ("The more I study willows, the more I am confused. ") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Salix cordata (heartleaf willow); A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway.

Methinks I hear these sounds, have these reminiscences, only when well employed. . . See November 18 1851 ("The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work."); April 12, 1854 ("I observe that it is when I have been intently, and it may be laboriously, at work . . . that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty. It is from out the shadow of my toil that I look into the light.”); April 30, 1856 (“Surveying seemed a noble employment which brought me within hearing of this bird. I was trying to get the exact course of a wall thickly beset with shrub oaks and birches, making an opening through them with axe and knife, while the hillside seemed to quiver or pulsate with the sudden melody. Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. The music or the beauty belong not to your work itself but some of its accompaniments. You would fain devote yourself to the melody, but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work.”); See also December 8, 1859 ("Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant.”)

As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day. Compare Walden (“I heard a robin in the distance, the first I had heard for many a thousand years, methought, whose note I shall not forget for many a thousand more”);

See  June 23, 1856. ("Bay-wings sang morning and evening . . . Its note somewhat like Come, here here, there there, —— quick quick quick (fast), — or I m gone. "); May 14, 1858 ("As I go down the railroad at evening, I hear the incessant evening song of the bay-wing from far over the fields. It suggests pleasant associations. Are they not heard chiefly at this season?")

If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day. See Wordsworth;s Tintern Abbey:

, , , While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years.,

and  February 13, 1859 ("A transient acquaintance with any phenomenon is not sufficient to make it completely the subject of your muse. You must be so conversant with it as to remember it and be reminded of it long afterward, while it lies remotely fair and elysian in the horizon, approachable only by the imagination.")

A night-warbler, plainly light beneath. It always flies to a new perch immediately after its song. According to Emerson, the night warbler was "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” See May 17, 1858 ("Just after hearing my night-warbler I see two birds on a tree. ...[One perhaps golden-crowned thrush. ]”); May 19, 1858 (“Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low."); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”) 

Suddenly, in some fortunate moment, the voice of eternal wisdom reaches me . . . and liberates me, whets and clarifies my senses, makes me a competent witness.") See January 11, 1857("I become a witness with unprejudiced senses to the order of the universe."); See also 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.")

As the bay-wing sang 

many thousand years ago

so sang he to-night. 

A brother poet 

one with the rocks and with me – 

whose muse inspires mine.

To be inspired  

a thousand years hence – be in 

harmony to-day.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  One with the rocks and with me

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

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