A Book of the Seasons: Basho's Commentary

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature . . . 

the season and life itself is prolonged.

  Henry Thoreau, April 7, 1853 

March. The frogs are now heard leaping into the ditches on your approach . . . I see the dimples where the croakers which were on the surface have dived . . . They are very wary, and instantly dive to the bottom . . . Later, in a pool behind Lee's Cliff, I hear them, – the waking up of the leafy pools.

The frogs are now heard

leaping into the ditches

on your approach. 

HDT ~ March 30, 1858

An old pond

a frog jumps in —

sound of water.

~ Basho

May.  Near Jenny Dugan’s, perceive that unaccountable fugacious fragrance, as of all flowers, bursting forth in air . . .It is the general fragrance of the year. I am almost afraid I shall trace it to some particular plant. It surpasses all particular fragrances. I am not sitting near any flower that I can perceive.

Unaccountable

flowery fragrance– yet not

near any flower.

HDT ~ May 6, 1855

From which tree's bloom

it comes, I do not know —

this fragrance.

~ Basho

May. Young blueberries every where in bloom, and Viola pedata along the woodland paths, in high land.  Sorrel in bloom, beginning. I am eager to taste a handful.

Viola pedata

along the woodland paths

in high land.

HDT ~ May 21, 1852

On mountain path

greeted by

a wild violet.

~ Basho

June. All the phenomena of nature need be seen from the point of view of wonder and awe, like lightning; and, on the other hand, the lightning itself needs to be regarded with serenity, as the most familiar and innocent phenomena are.

Wonder awe

innocence serenity –

lightning!

HDT ~  June 27, 1852

How admirable!

to see lightning and not think

life is fleeting.

~ Basho

July. Before I rise I hear the song of birds from out the fog, like the bursting of its bubbles with music, the bead on liquids just uncorked . . . I am older than last year; the mornings are further between; the days are fewer.  

Birds from out the fog,

I am older than last year –

the days are fewer.

HDT ~ July 7, 1852

This autumn

why am I aging so?

Bird in a cloud.

~ Basho

August. The little bees have gone to sleep amid the clethra blossoms in the rain and are not yet aroused.

The little bees sleep

amid blossoms in the rain

and are not aroused.

HDT ~ August 4, 1852

A bee

staggers out

of the peony.

~Basho

August. It is the turning-point between afternoon and evening. The few sounds now heard, far or near, are delicious. It is not more dusky and obscure, but clearer than before. Each sound has a broad and deep relief of silence.

Clearer than before 

each sound has a broad and deep 

relief of silence. 

HDT  ~ August 11, 1853

The silence –

the voice of the cicadas

penetrates the rocks.

~ Basho

September. I hear from my chamber a screech owl about Monroe’s house this bright moonlight night, — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt perchance, a rapid trill, then subdued or smothered a note or two.

This bright moonlight night

an owl heard from my chamber —

a loud, piercing scream.

HDT ~  September 23, 1855

autumn wind

through an open door –

a piercing cry

~ Basho

September. I see the very peak, — there can be no mistake, — but how much I do not see . . .What is it but a faint blue cloud, a mist that may vanish?

That far blue mountain

is but a faint blue cloud – a

mist that may vanish.

HDT ~ September 27, 1852

How intriguing! —

Mount Fuji is veiled all day

in the misty rain.

~ Basho (after Uedo)

October. One crow lingers on a limb of the dead oak till I am within a dozen rods. There is strong and blustering northwest wind, and when it launches off to follow its comrades it is blown up and backward still nearer to me. 

One crow lingers

on a limb of the dead oak . . .

strong blustering wind.

HDT ~ October 6, 1860

On a bare branch 

a solitary crow –

autumn evening.

~ Basho 

October. The moon beginning to wane . . . The forest has lost so many leaves that its floor and paths are much more checkered with light. I hear no sound but the rustling of the withered leaves, and, on the wooded hilltops, the roar of the wind. Each tree resounds all night.

The roar of the wind

on the wooded hilltops – each

tree resounds all night.

HDT ~ October 28, 1852

All night long

listening to autumn winds

wandering the mountain.

~ Basho 

November. We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. 

      

Cold yellow sunlight

illumines the withered fields –

November sunset. 

HDT ~  November 9, 1858

Sick on a journey

my dreams wander

the withered fields.

~ Basho

December.  For years my appetite was so strong that I fed — I browsed — on the pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon . . . fed my imagination on them, — far-away, ideal trees . . . the value of the forest for me [was] in that line where it was relieved against the sky.

The pine forest's edge –

that far line seen against the

winter horizon.

HDT ~ December 3, 1856  

 

Coolness

the clean lines

of the wild pine.

~ Basho

December. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!  This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.

Winter solitude –

the new moon reflected from

the frozen snow crust.

HDT ~ December 8, 1850

Winter solitude –

in a world of one color

the sound of wind.

~Basho

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Basho's Commentary

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 © 2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-Basho

A Book of the Seasons: The Cricket in August

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

I hear a cricket

and am penetrated with 

the sense of autumn. 

August 4, 1851

 A gentle rain and 

a lowering sky, but still 

I hear the cricket.

August 4, 1852

This sense of lateness –

now is the season of fruits

but where is our fruit?

August 18, 1853

A sound reminds me

past autumns, lapse of time – so

little brought to pass.

August 18, 1856

The song of the crickets

it fails not in its season

night or day.

August 20, 1851

Morning crickets snore,

in the afternoon they chirp,

at midnight they dream.

 August 20, 1841

*****

August 2. The crickets on the causeway make a steady creak, on the dry pasture-tops an interrupted one. August 2, 1854

August 3.  At the east window. A temperate noon. I hear a cricket creak in the shade; also the sound of a distant piano. August 3, 1852

August 4. It is now the royal month of August. As my eye rests on the blossom of the meadow-sweet in a hedge, I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn. I am as dry as the rye which is everywhere cut and housed, though I am drunk with the season's wine.  August 4, 1851

August 4. Have had a gentle rain, and now with a lowering sky, but still I hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall. August 4, 1852

August 4. Have heard the alder cricket some days. The turning-point is reached.  August 4, 1856 

[Spooner says Thoreau's alder cricket is the snowy tree cricket. Thoreau's Vision of Insects & the Origins of American Entomology. Adults of the species can be found from mid-July to mid-November, sometimes be so high in oak trees that its chirp is the only way to identify it. It lives in shrubs, vines, fruit trees, broadleaved trees, and oaks, and can rarely be found in grass. ~ Wikipedia ]

August 6.  It is at length cloudy, and still behind the hills, and very grateful is this anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon. August 6, 1854

August 6. Hear the autumnal crickets . . . The mole cricket creaks along the shore. August 6, 1855 

[Mole crickets live almost entirely below ground, digging tunnels of different kinds for feeding, escape from predators, attracting a mate (by singing), mating, and raising of young.~ Wikipedia]

August 7. The cool nocturnal creak of the crickets is heard in the mid-afternoon. August 7, 1854

August 11.  I have heard since the 1st of this month the steady creaking cricket.  August 11, 1854

August 12.  As I stand on the bank there, I find suddenly that I hear, low and steady, under all other sounds, the creak of the mole cricket by the riverside. It has a peculiarly late sound, suggestive of the progress of the year. It is the voice which comes up steadily at this season from that narrow sandy strip between the meadow and the water’s edge. You might think it issued from that small frog, the only living thing you see, which sits so motionless on the sand. But the singer is wholly out of sight in his gallery under the surface. 

Creak creak, creak creak, creak creak, creak creak. 

It is a sound associated with the declining year and recalls the moods of that season. It is so unobtrusive yet universal a sound, so underlying the other sounds which fill the air, —the song of birds, rustling of leaves, dry hopping sound of grasshoppers, etc., —that now, in my chamber, I can hardly be sure whether I hear it still, or remember it, it so rings in my ears. August 12, 1858

[Male mole crickets have an exceptionally loud song; they sing from a burrow that opens out into the air in the shape of an exponential horn. The song is an almost pure tone, modulated into chirps.~Wikipedia]

August 14. I sit three-quarters up the hill. The crickets creak strong and loud now after sunset. No word will spell it. It is a short, strong, regular ringing sound, as of a thousand exactly together, — though further off some alternate, — repeated regularly and in rapid time, perhaps twice in a second. Methinks their quire is much fuller and louder than a fortnight ago. August 14, 1854 

[ Crickets chirp at different rates depending on their species and the temperature. According to Dolbear's law, counting the number of chirps produced in 14 seconds by the snowy tree cricket,  and adding 40 will approximate the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. ~Wikipedia]

August 15. That clear ring like an alder locust (is it a cricket ?) for some time past is a sound which belongs to the season. August 15, 1852 

August 15. But now it is cooler and beautifully clear at last after all these rains, and the crickets chirp with a still more autumnal sound. August 15, 1853

August 17.  My life flows with a deeper current, no longer as a shallow and brawling stream, parched and shrunken by the summer heats. This coolness comes to condense the dews and clear the atmosphere. The stillness seems more deep and significant. Each sound seems to come from out a greater thoughtfulness in nature, as if nature had acquired some character and mind. The cricket, the gurgling stream, the rushing wind amid the trees, all speak to me soberly yet encouragingly of the steady onward progress of the universe.  August 17, 1851

August 17.  Dawn . . . The creak of the crickets sounds louder. August 17, 1852

August 18. What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill, and if we had not performed anything before, we should not now? The season of flowers or of promise may be said to be over, and now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit? The night of the year is approaching. What have we done with our talent? All nature prompts and reproves us. How early in the year it begins to be late! The sound of the crickets, even in the spring, makes our hearts beat with its awful reproof, while it encourages with its seasonable warning. It matters not by how little we have fallen behind; it seems irretrievably late. The year is full of warnings of its shortness, as is life. The sound of so many insects and the sight of so many flowers affect us so, — the creak of the cricket and the sight of the prunella and autumnal dandelion. They say, "For the night cometh in which no man may work." August 18, 1853

August 18.  As I go along the hillsides in sprout-lands, amid the Solidago stricta, looking for the blackberries left after the rain, the sun warm as ever, but the air cool nevertheless, I hear the steady (not intermittent) shrilling of apparently the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound. Hear it, but see it not. It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy, like the sound of the flail. Such preparation, such an outfit has our life, and so little brought to pass! August 18, 1856

August 19. The cricket's is a note which does not attract you to itself. It is not easy to find one . . . The cricket's chirp now fills the air in dry fields near pine woods.  August 19, 1851

August 19.  It is cool with a considerable northwesterly wind, so that we can sail to Fair Haven. The dog-day weather is suddenly gone and here is a cool, clear, and elastic air. You may say it is the first day of autumn. You notice the louder and clearer ring of crickets, and the large, handsome red spikes of the Polygonum amphibium are now generally conspicuous along the shore. August 19, 1858

August 20.  In the morning the crickets snore, in the afternoon they chirp, at midnight they dream. August 20, 1841

August 20.  I hear a cricket in the Depot Field, walk a rod or two, and find the note proceeds from near a rock. Partly under a rock, between it and the roots of the grass, he lies concealed, — for I pull away the withered grass with my hands, — uttering his night-like creak, with a vibratory motion of his wings, and flattering himself that it is night, because he has shut out the day. He was a black fellow nearly an inch long, with two long, slender feelers. They plainly avoid the light and hide their heads in the grass. At any rate they regard this as the evening of the year. They are remarkably secret and unobserved, considering how much noise they make. Every milkman has heard them all his life; it is the sound that fills his ears as he drives along. But what one has ever got off his cart to go in search of one? I see smaller ones moving stealthily about, whose note I do not know.

Who ever distinguished their various notes, 

which fill the crevices in each other's song?

 

It would be a curious ear, indeed, 

that distinguished the species of the crickets which it heard,

and traced even the earth-song home, 

each part to its particular performer.

I am afraid to be so knowing. 

They are shy as birds, these little bodies. Those nearest me continually cease their song as I walk, so that the singers are always a rod distant, and I cannot easily detect one. It is difficult, moreover, to judge correctly whence the sound proceeds. Perhaps this wariness is necessary to save them from insectivorous birds, which would otherwise speedily find out so loud a singer. They are somewhat protected by the universalness of the sound, each one's song being merged and lost in the general concert, as if it were the creaking of earth's axle. They are very numerous in oats and other grain, which conceals them and yet affords a clear passage. 

I never knew any drought or sickness so to prevail as to quench the song of the crickets; it fails not in its season, night or day. August 20, 1851

August 20. 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, 1858

August 21. There are as few or fewer birds heard than flowers seen. The sound of the crickets gradually prevails more and more. I hear the year falling asleep. August 21, 1852

August 21. Saw one of those light-green locusts about three quarters of an inch long on a currant leaf in the garden. It kept up a steady shrilling (unlike the interrupted creak of the cricket) August 21, 1853

August 22. The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore. August 22, 1856

August 23. When I stopped to gather some blueberries by the roadside this afternoon, I heard the shrilling of a cricket or a grasshopper close to me, quite clear, almost like a bell, a stridulous sound, a clear ring, incessant, not intermittent, like the song of the black fellow I caught the other day, and not suggesting the night, but belonging to day. August 23, 1851

August 23. About 8 p.m.- To Cliffs, moon half full.  As I go up the back road, I hear the loud ringing creak of crickets, louder singers on each apple tree by the roadside, with an intermittent pulsing creak . . .I hear a faint metallic titter from a bird, so faint that if uttered at noonday it would not be heard, — not so loud as a cricket. I cannot remember the last moon. August 23, 1852

August 23. Hear the mole cricket nowadays. August 23, 1857

August 24.  Ride to Austin Bacon’s, Natick . . . nearby, a large white ash which though healthy bore a mark or scar where a branch had been broken off and stripped down the trunk.  B. said that one of his ancestors, perhaps his grandfather, before the Revolution, went to climb this tree, and reached up and took hold of this branch, which he stripped down, and this was the scar!  Under the dead bark of this tree saw several large crickets of a rare kind. They had a peculiar naked and tender look, with branched legs and a rounded incurved front.  August 24, 1857

August 25. Yesterday was a hot day, but oh, this dull, cloudy, breezy, thoughtful weather in which the creak of the cricket sounds louder, preparatory to a cheerful storm!  How grateful to our feelings is the approach of autumn! We have had no serious storm since spring.   August 25, 1852

August 26. The wind roars amid the pines like the surf. You can hardly hear the crickets for the din, or the cars. Indeed it is difficult to enjoy a quiet thought. Such a blowing, stirring, bustling day, - what does it mean ? 

August 26, 1851

August 26. Tuesday. More wind and quite cold this morning, but very bright and sparkling, autumn-like air, reminding of frosts to be apprehended, also tempting abroad to adventure. The fall cricket — or is it alder locust? — sings the praises of the day. August 26, 1856

August 26.  The dust is laid, the streets washed, the leaves — the first ripe crop — fallen, owing to yesterday's copious rain. It is clearer weather, and the creak of the crickets is more distinct, just as the air is clearer . . . The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound . . .The first fall rain is a memorable occasion, when the river is raised and cooled, and the first crop of sere and yellow leaves falls. The air is cleared; the dog-days are over; sun-sparkles are seen on water; crickets sound more distinct. August 26, 1859

August 27. Crickets sound much louder after the rain in this cloudy weather.  August 27, 1852

August 29. Might I not walk a little further, till I hear new crickets, till their creak has acquired some novelty, as if they were a new species whose habitat I had reached? August 29, 1851

August  29.  We walk invested by sound, -— the cricket in the grass and the eagle in the clouds. And so it circled over, and I strained my eyes to follow it, though my ears heard it without effort. August 29, 1858

August 31. Now especially the crickets are seen and heard on dry and sandy banks and fields, near their burrows, and some hanging, back down, to the stems of grass, feeding. I entered a dry grassy hollow where the cricket alone seemed to reign, — open like a bowl to the sky.  August 31, 1859

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

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

tinyurl.com/HDTAugustCricket            

A Book of the Seasons: August 4 (gentle August rain, cricketa, aromatic herbs, cinnamon fern, berries. the wood thrush, lightning, clouds and moonlight)

 

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

August 4

August 4, 2015

Small lake in the woods

full of light and reflections

as the wood thrush sings.

August 4, 1852

August 4, 2013

I hear a cricket

and am penetrated with 

the sense of autumn. 

August 4, 1851

 A gentle rain and 

a lowering sky, but still 

I hear the cricket.

August 4, 1852

Most huckleberries

 blueberries and  blackberries 

are in their prime now. 

August 4, 1852

Fields which have been mown 

now look very green again 

like a second spring. 

August 4, 1853

August rain and mist

contract our horizon

to the near and small.

August 4, 1854

In low swampy woods

where cinnamon fern prevails

it’s already fall.

August 4, 1854

Low thick flat white fog

on meadows after sunset

ushers in the night.

August 4, 1854

Such a profusion

each patch each bush seems fuller -- 

blacker than the last.

August 4, 1856 

Lightning in the south.

Clouds alternate with moonlight

the rest of the night.

August 4, 1860  

August 4, 2018

The farmer with his barns and cattle and poultry and grain and grass. The smell of his hay. It is now the royal month of August.  August 4, 1851. 

A still, cloudy day with from time to time a gentle August rain. Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects. August 4, 1854

The low fields which have been mown now look very green again in consequence of the rain, as if it were a second spring. August 4, 1853

A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods is in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm at this season, when the air and water are perfectly still, but the sky still overcast. August 4, 1852

In the meanwhile the wood thrush sings in the woods around the lake. August 4, 1852. 

As my eye rests on the blossom of the meadow-sweet in a hedge, I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn. I am as dry as the rye which is everywhere cut and housed, though I am drunk with the season's wine. August 4, 1851

Have had a gentle rain, and now with a lowering sky, but still I hear the cricket. August 4, 1852

He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall. The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this. August 4, 1852

Have heard the alder cricket some days. The turning-point is reached. August 4, 1856

I scent the sweet-scented life-everlasting, which is half expanded. August 4, 1851 

I smell the fragrant life-everlasting, now almost out; another scent that reminds me of the autumn. August 4, 1852.  

The little bees have gone to sleep amid the clethra blossoms in the rain and are not yet aroused. August 4, 1852

Hypericum corymbosum. Spotted St. John's-wort, some time in July. August 4, 1852. 

It is already fall in low swampy woods where the cinnamon fern prevails. There are the sight and scent of beginning decay. August 4, 1854

Purple gerardia, by brook. August 4, 1854

Most huckleberries and blueberries and low blackberries are in their prime now. August 4, 1852

The bushes are black with huckleberries. ... Now in their prime. Some glossy black, some dull black, some blue; and patches of Vaccinium vacillans intermixed. August 4, 1854

Carried party a-berrying to Conantum in boat. August 4, 1856

Conantum hillside is now literally black with berries. What a profusion of this kind of food Nature provides, as if to compensate for the scarcity last year! . . . They are literally five or six species deep. 

• First, away down in the shade under all you find, still fresh, the great very light blue (i. e. with a very thick blue bloom) Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum in heavy clusters, that early ambrosial fruit, delicate-flavored, thin-skinned, and cool, — Olympian fruit;
•  then, next above, the still denser bunches and clusters of V. vacillans, of various varieties, firm and sweet, solid food; 
• and, rising above these, large blue and also shining black huckleberries (Gaylussacia resinosa) of various flavors and qualities;
•  and over all runs rampant the low blackberry (Rubus Canadensis), weighing down the thicket with its wreaths of black fruit. 
• Also here and there the high blackberry, just beginning, towers over all. 

You go daintily wading through this thicket, picking, perchance, only the biggest of the blackberries — as big as your thumb — and clutching here and there a handful of huckleberries or blueberries, but never, perchance, suspecting the delicious cool blue-bloomed ones under all. This favorable moist weather has expanded some of the huckleberries to the size of bullets. Each patch, each bush, seems fuller and blacker than the last. Such a profusion. August 4, 1856 

8.30 A. M. Start for Monadnock. Begins to rain at 9 A. M., and rains from time to time thereafter all day, the mountain top being constantly enveloped in clouds. . . . Am exhilarated by the peculiar raspberry scent by the roadside this wet day . . . Raspberries still quite common, though late August 4, 1860. 

I hear the singular watery twitter of the goldfinch, ter tweeter e et or e ee, as it ricochets over, he and his russet (?) female. August 4, 1852. 

The bobolink and thrasher, etc., are silent. August 4, 1852. 

I hear the pigeon woodpecker still, — wickoff, wickoff, wickoff, wickoff, from a neighboring oak. August 4, 1854. 

Just after bathing at the rock near the Island this afternoon, after sunset, I saw a flock of thousands of barn swallows and some white-bellied, and perhaps others, for it was too dark to distinguish them. They came flying over the river in loose array, wheeled and flew round in a great circle over the bay there, about eighty feet high, with a loud twittering as if seeking a resting-place, then flew up the stream. I was very much surprised at their numbers. . . . I supposed that they were preparing to migrate. August 4, 1855

After sunset, a very low, thick, and flat white fog like a napkin, on the meadows, which ushers in a foggy night. August 4, 1854

Lightning is seen far in the south. Cloud, drifting cloud, alternate with moonlight all the rest of the night. August 4, 1860

At 11. 00 P. M. I heard a nighthawk. Maybe it hunted then because prevented by the cloud at evening . August 4, 1860

*****

A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, AUGUST

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aromatic Herbs

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Bees

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Blueberries

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

A Book of the Seasons, The White-bellied Swallow

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Nighthawk

A Book of the Seasons,  August Moods

A Book of the Seasons,  August Moonlight

August 4, 2019

This small lake was of most value as a neighbor 

in the intervals of a gentle rain storm in August, when, 

both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, 

mid-afternoon had all the serenity of evening, 

and the wood-thrush sang around,

 and was heard from shore to shore. 

A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; 

and the clear portion of the air above it 

being shallow and darkened by clouds, 

the water, full of light and reflections, 

becomes a lower heaven itself 

so much the more important.

 ~ Walden 

May 5, 1854 ("Hear what I should call the twitter and mew of a goldfinch and see the bird go over with ricochet flight.")
May 17, 1858 ("The clouds and rain confine me to near objects")

July 11, 1851 ("The meadow-sweet has bloomed")

July 13, 1851 ("The sweet-scented life-everlasting is budded.")

July 21, 1856 ("Hypericum corymbosum, a day or two. The small hypericums are open only in the forenoon.")

July 22, 1851 ("The season of morning fogs has arrived. A great crescent over the course of the river, the fog retreats, and I do not see how it is dissipated, leaving this slight, thin vapor to curl over the surface of the still, dark water, still as glass.")
July 19, 1854 ("The great cinnamon ferns are very handsome now in tufts, falling over in handsome curves on every side. Some are a foot wide and raised up six feet long")

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 31, 1855 ("Have observed the twittering over of goldfinches for a week")

August 2, 1854 ("The nighthawk flies low, skimming over the ground now")

August 2, 1854 ("Meanwhile the moon in her first quarter is burnishing her disk") 

August 2, 1854 ("The crickets on the causeway make a steady creak.")

August 3, 1852 ("I hear a cricket creak in the shade")

August 3, 1852 ("The Great Meadows alive with farmers getting their hay. ")

August 3, 1856 ("High blackberries beginning; a few ripe.")

August 5. 1851 ("The swallows go over with a watery twittering. I hear the whip-poor-will at a distance. It is almost dark. I distinguish the modest moonlight on my paper.")

August 5, 1852  ("The men, women, and children who perchance come hither blueberrying in their season get more than the value of the berries in the influences of the scene")

August 5, 1855  ("Now many swallows in the twilight, after circling eight feet high, come back two or three hundred feet high and then go down the river. ")

August 5, 1860 ("The-fresh, dewy almost crispy blueberries . . . low blueberries, just in their prime. Blueberries of every degree of blueness and of bloom.")

August 6, 1852 ("Summer gets to be an old story. Birds leave off singing, as flowers blossoming. With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc., cease?")

August 6, 1852 ( How different the feeble twittering of the birds here at sunrise from the full quire of the spring! Only the wood thrush, a huckleberry-bird or two, or chickadee, the scream of a flicker or a jay, or the caw of a crow, and commonly only an alarmed note of a robin")

August 6, 1852 ("I find a bumblebee asleep in a thistle blossom, having crowded himself in deep amid the dense florets, out of the reach of birds, while the sky was overcast.")

August 6, 1855 ("I see seven or eight nighthawks together; dull-buff breasts, with tails short and black beneath")

August 7, 1852 ("At this season we have gentle rain-storms, making the aftermath green . . . as if it were a second spring").

August 7, 1853 (“The river is dark and smooth these days, reflecting no brightness but dark clouds, and the goldfinch is heard twittering over; though presently a thicker mist or mizzle falls, and you are prepared for rain. . . The stillness and the shade enable you to collect and concentrate your thoughts.”)
August 7, 1855 ("To Tarbell Hill again with the Emersons, a-berrying. Very few berries this year.")
August 9, 1851 ("Tansy now in bloom and the fresh white clethra")

August 10, 1853 ("August, royal and rich . . .  It is glorious to see those great shining high blackberries, now partly ripe.")

August 10, 1856 ("Hear the wood thrush still.")

August 11, 1853 ("What a humming of insects about the sweet-scented clethra blossoms, honey-bees and others, and flies and various kinds of wasps!")

 August 12, 1851 ("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.")

August 12, 1851 ("I hear a wood thrush even now.")

August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.")

August 12, 1854("Have not heard a wood thrush since last week of July.")

August 12, 1856 ("Gerardia purpurea, two or three days")
August 12, 1860 ("The clethra is in prime")

August 14, 1853 ("I hear no wood thrushes for a week.")

August 15, 1852 ("That clear ring like an alder locust (is it a cricket ?) for some time past is a sound which belongs to the season.")

August 15, 1854 ("The clethra must be one of the most conspicuous flowers not yellow at present.")

August 19, 1851 ("The fragrance of the clethra fills the air by water sides.")
August 19, 1856(In the radula swamp the sweet scent of clethra")
August 20, 1852 ("The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass.")

August 20, 1854 ("The woodland quire is dissolved. That, if I remember, was about a fortnight ago. The concert is over.")

August 21, 1851 ("The purple gerardia now.")

August 21, 1851 ("Clethra (really a fine, sweet-scented, and this year particularly fair and fresh, flower, some unexpanded buds at top tinged with red)")
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")

August 23, 1858 ("The luxuriant cinnamon fern . . . has complete possession of the swamp floor. Its great fronds, curving this way and that, remind me [of] a tropical vegetation. They are as high as my head and . ..  form one green waving mass.")

August 29,1854 ("The barn swallows are very lively, filling the air with their twittering now, at 6 p.m. They rest on the dry mullein-tops, then suddenly all start off together as with one impulse and skim about over the river, hill, and meadow. . . .Are they not gathering for their migration?")

September 12, 1858 ("The cinnamon fern has begun to yellow and wither. How rich in its decay! . . . Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place,")
November 7, 1855 ("The view is contracted by the misty rain . . . I am compelled to look at near objects.")
November 8, 1857 ("When the air is thick and the sky overcast, we need not walk so far. We give our attention to nearer objects")

August 4, 2018

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

August 3  <<<<< August 4  >>>>>   August 5

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 4 

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