In a freshet the water rises higher as you go down the river.

July 8. 

Friday. 

I see an emperor moth (Attacus Cecropia), which came out the 6th. 

P. M. — To Clamshell by river. 

The Carex Muhlenbergii is common on Clamshell slope, just beyond the ravine. 

Thimble-berries have begun. 

The islands of the river, below the Assabet especially, — as Hosmer's, and the one just below French's Rock, — are now covered with 

• canary grass, which has almost entirely done and closed up; 
• fowl-meadow (Poa serotina), now fairly begun to bloom (first noticed the middle of June its slender green panicles shaped like a green red-top);
• Glyceria fluitans, going out of bloom; also
•  the sensitive fern (the "hand leaf" of haymakers); 
• pipes; 
• (and sedges, which might be named as soon as any, as the crinita which overhangs the water). 

I judge that in a freshet the water rises higher as you go down the river, both from the height to which it rose last March, as shown me at several bridges, and from the height of the bridges themselves, which the builders have been gradually compelled to raise, for the most part just above high-water mark.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 8, 1859

I see an emperor moth (Attacus Cecropia), which came out the 6th. See May 6, 1858 ("A boy brings me to-day an Attacus Cecropia moth . . ., the male, a dark brown above, and considerably larger than mine. It must be about seven inches in alar extent."); June 2, 1855 ("It was surprising to see the creature unfold and expand before our eyes, the wings gradually elongating, . . .at dusk, when apparently it was waving its wings preparatory to its evening flight, I gave it ether and so saved it in a perfect state.");June 18, 1857 ("They brought me an Attacus Cecropia . . . Its body was large like the one I have preserved"); June 22, 1857 ("It seems that Sophia found an Attacus Cecropia out in my chamber last Monday, or the 15th. It soon went to laying eggs on the window-sill, ")

Thimble-berries have begun.  See July 13, 1856 ("Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant");  July 17, 1856 ("On Linnaea Hill many thimble-berries and some raspberries."); July 18, 1854 ("As I go along the Joe Smith road, every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems. "); July 21, 1856 ("Low blackberries thick enough to pick in some places, three or four days. Thimble-berries about the 12th, and V. Pennsylvanicum much longer.").

The sensitive fern (the "hand leaf" of haymakers.) See September 6, 1856 ("The sensitiveness of the sensitive fern. If you take a tender plant by the stem, the warmth of your hand will cause the leaves to curl."); August 19, 1854 ("The very light yellowish-green of the sensitive fern which the mowers have left.")

The character of the river valley changes about at Hill's Bridge.

June 24. 

To Billerica dam, surveying the bridges. 

Another foggy [sic], amounting from time to time to a fine rain, and more, even to a shower, though the grass was thickly covered with cobwebs in the morning. Yet it was a condensed fog, I should say. Its value appeared to be as a veil to protect the tender vegetation after the long rainy and cloudy weather.

The 22d, 23d, and 24th, I have been surveying the bridges and river from Heard's Bridge to the Billerica dam. 

I hear of two places in Wayland where there was formerly what was called a hay bridge, but no causeway, at some narrow and shallow place, a hundred years ago or more. Have looked after all the swift and the shallow places also. The testimony of the farmers, etc., is that the river thirty to fifty years ago was much lower in the summer than now. 

Deacon Richard Heard spoke of playing when a boy on the river side of the bushes where the pads are, and of wading with great ease at Heard's Bridge, and I hear that one Rice (of Wayland or Sudbury), an old man, remembers galloping his horse through the meadows to the edge of the river. 

The meadow just above the causeway on the Wayland side was spoken of as particularly valuable. 

Colonel David Heard, who accompanied me and is best acquainted of any with the details of the controversy, — has worked at clearing out the river (I think about 1820), — said that he did not know of a rock in the river from the falls near the Framingham line to perhaps the rear of Hubbard's in Concord. 

The grass not having been cut last year, the ice in the spring broke off great quantities of pipes, etc., immense masses of them, which were floated and drifted down against the causeways and bridges; and there they he still, almost concealing any green grass, like a raft on the meadows, along the south side the causeways. 

The inhabitants of Wayland used a good deal for mulching trees. One told me that at Sherman's Bridge they stretched quite across the river above the bridge, so that a man "could walk across on them," — perhaps "did walk across on them," — but on inquiring of one who lived by the bridge I learned that "a dog could not have walked across on them." 

Daniel Garfield, whom I met fishing on the river, and who has worked on Nine-Acre Corner and Lee's Bridges for fifty years or more, could remember one year when Captain Wheeler dug much mud from the river, when the water was so low that he could throw out pickerel on each side outside the bushes (where the pads now are). 

Says that his old master with whom he lived in Lincoln when he was young told him that he wheeled the first barrow-load at the building of Lee's Bridge and road, and that if he were alive now he would be a good deal over a hundred years old. Yet Shattuck says that bridge was a new bridge in 1660. 

Ebenezer Conant remembers when the Canal dam was built, and that before that it used to be dry at midsummer outside the bushes on each side. 

Lee says that about 1819 the bridge near him was rebuilt and the mud-sills taken up. These are said to remain sound an indefinite while. When they put in a new pile (Buttrick the carpenter tells me) they find the mortise in the mud-sill and place it in that. 

Deacon Farrar says that he can remember Lee's Bridge seventy-five years ago, and that it was not a new bridge then. That it is sometimes obstructed by hay in the spring. That he has seen a chip go faster up-stream there than ever down. His son said this was the case considerably further up in the meadows toward Rice's, and he thought it the effect of Stow River backing up. 

Deacon Farrar thought the hay bridge called Farrar's Bridge was for foot-passengers only. 

I found the water in Fair Haven Pond on the 22d twelve to thirteen feet deep in what I thought the channel, but in Purple Utricularia Bay, half a dozen rods from the steep hill, twenty-two and a half feet was the most I found. 

John Hosmer tells me that he remembers Major Hosmer's testifying that the South Bridge was carried up-stream, before the court, at the beginning of the controversy. 

Simonds of Bedford, who is measuring the rapidity of the current at Carlisle Bridge, says that a board with a string attached ran off there one hundred yards in fifteen minutes at the height of water (in May, and pretty high), when the Commissioners were here. That he has found it to be swiftest just after the water has begun to fall. 

The character of the river valley changes about at Hill's Bridge. The meadows are quite narrow and of a different character, — higher and firmer, — a long hill bounds the meadow, and almost the river, on the west for a good way, and high land on the east, and the bottom is harder and said to be often rocky (?). The water was about four and a half feet deep — sounded with a paddle and guessed at — at the Fordway, and at that stage so swift and strong that you could not row a boat against it in the swiftest part of the falls.

July 22d, the average depth of water at the Fordway was two feet, it having fallen in Concord two feet nine and three fourths inches since June 23d; so that the water fell possibly as much in this month at the Fordway as at Concord, — I think surely within half a foot as much.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 24, 1859

Surveying the bridges

June 23.

June 23, 2019

Ride to Wayland, surveying the bridges. 

Veiny-leaved hawkweed freshly out. 

At Heard's Bridge the white maple is the prevailing one, and I do not notice a red one there nor at Bridle Point Bridge. I think I saw the white as far down as the Sudbury causeway.

A foggy, Cape-Cod day, with an easterly wind.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 23, 1859

Ride to Wayland, surveying the bridges. See July 10,1859 ("Take boat at Fair Haven Pond and paddle up to Sudbury Causeway, sounding the river."); see also January 31, 1855 ("I skated up as far as the boundary between Wayland and Sudbury just above Pelham’s Pond, about twelve miles, . . . It was, all the way that I skated, a chain of meadows, with the muskrat-houses still rising above the ice. I skated past three bridges above Sherman’s —or nine in all—and walked to the fourth. It was quite an adventure getting over the bridge ways or causeways, for on every shore there was either water or thin ice which would not bear.")

Veiny-leaved hawkweed freshly out. See June 23, 1858 ("Veiny-leaved hawkweed, how long?") See also August 21, 1851 (" I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Hawkweeds (hieracium)

A foggy, Cape-Cod day, with an easterly wind. See June 23, 1854 ("There has been a foggy haze, dog-day-like, for perhaps ten days,"); June 23, 1860 ("The atmosphere is decidedly blue. I see it in the street within thirty rods, and perceive a distinct musty odor. First bluish, musty dog-day, and sultry. Thermometer at two only 85°, however, and wind comes easterly soon and rather cool."); June 30, 1857 ("Yesterday afternoon it was remarkably cool, with wind, it being easterly, and I anticipated a sea-turn.")

The meadow ice is rapidly breaking up.

March 14.

P. M. — To Hunt house.

"Old Hosmer House and Hunt Farm on Lowell Road, Concord, Mass.

Unidentified Artist, Concord, MA, about 1860. Concord Museum Collection.

I thought from the above drawing that the original door must have been in the middle of the old part and not at one end, and that I should detect it in the manner in which the studs were set in. I really did so and found some other traces of the old door (where I have dotted it) when I got there. 

Some of the chalk- marks which have been preserved under the casing of the timbers so long have been completely washed off in yesterday's rain, as the frame stood bare. Also read in chalk on a chamber floor joist (which had been plastered over beneath) "enfine Brown," so many s. and d., and what most read for "Feb 1666," but, being written over a rough knot, it is doubtful.

"Hides 3." 

Saw E. Hosmer take up the cellar stairs.

They are of white oak, in form like one half of a squared white oak log sawed diagonally. These lie flat on their broadest sides on the slanting earth, resting near each end on a horse, which is a white oak stick with the bark on, hewed on the upper side and sunk in the earth, and they are fastened to this by two pins of wood placed as I have indicated.

I judge by my eye that the house is fifteen feet high to the eaves. The posts are remarkably sawn and hewn away on account of the projection of the upper story, so that they are more than twice as large above as below, thus:  the corner posts being cut on two sides or more  than half away (six inches off them) below the second story. 

The chimney was laid in clay. "T. B." were perhaps the initials of Thomas Brown; also "I. [?] H. D." 



The cowslip in pitcher has fairly blossomed to-day.

I see a large flock of grackles searching for food along the water's edge, just below Dr. Bartlett's. Some wade in the water. They are within a dozen rods of me and the road.

It must be something just washed up that they are searching for, for the water has just risen and is still rising fast. Is it not insects and worms washed out of the grass? and perhaps the snails ?

When a grackle sings, it is as if his mouth were full of cotton, which he was trying to spit out. 

The river is still rising. It is open [?] and generally over the meadows. 

The meadow ice is rapidly breaking up. Great cakes half a dozen rods long are drifted down against the bridges. There is a strong current on the meadow, not only north along the causeway, but south along the north end of the causeway, the water thus rushing both ways toward the only outlet at the bridge. 

This is proved by great cakes of ice floating swiftly along parallel with the causeway, but in opposite directions, to meet at the bridge. They are there soon broken up by the current after they strike the abutments. 

I see a large cake eight feet wide and ten inches thick, just broken off, carried under the bridge in a vertical position and wholly under water, such is the pressure there. This shows to what an extent the causeways and bridges act as dams to the flood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 14, 1859

Hunt House See March 11, 1859

The cowslip in pitcher has fairly blossomed to-day. See March 5, 1859 ("The cowslip there Well Meadow] is very prominently flower-budded, lifting its yellow flower-buds above water in one place. The leaves are quite inconspicuous when they first come up, being rolled up tightly.");  March 24, 1855 ("It is too cold to think of those signs of spring which I find recorded under this date last year. The earliest signs of spring in vegetation noticed thus far are the maple sap, the willow catkins, grass on south banks, and perhaps cowslip in sheltered places") ;  March 26, 1857 ("The buds of the cowslip are very yellow, and the plant is not observed a rod off, it lies so low and close to the surface of the water in the meadow. It may bloom and wither there several times before villagers discover or suspect it"); March 27, 1855 ("Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is sheltered from the winds. The already expanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth, it is the most forward herb I have seen"); April 8, 1856 ("There, in that slow, muddy brook near the head of Well Meadow, within a few rods of its source, where it winds amid the alders, which shelter the plants somewhat, while they are open enough now to admit the sun, I find two cowslips in full bloom, shedding pollen")

Skater and partridge in a whir

January 31

A clear, cold, beautiful day. Fine skating. An unprecedented expanse of ice. At 10 A. M., skated up the river to explore further than I had been.

I skated up as far as the boundary between Wayland and Sudbury just above Pelham’s Pond, about twelve miles, between 10 A. M. and one, quite leisurely.  As I passed the mouth of Larned Brook, off Wayland meeting-house, I pulled out my glass and saw that it was 12.30 o’clock. 

I skated about twelve miles and walked three quarters of a mile further. It was, all the way that I skated, a chain of meadows, with the muskrat-houses still rising above the ice. I skated past three bridges above Sherman’s —or nine in all—and walked to the fourth. It was quite an adventure getting over the bridge ways or causeways, for on every shore there was either water or thin ice which would not bear.

As I skate near the shore under Lee’s Cliff, I see  what I take to be some scrags or knotty stubs of a dead limb lying on the bank beneath a white oak, close by me. Yet while I look directly at them I can not but admire their close resemblance to partridges. For some time after noting the resemblance to birds, standing only two rods off, I can not be sure of their character on account of their perfect motionlessness, and it is not till I bring my glass to bear on them and see their eyes distinctly, steadily glaring on me, their necks and every muscle tense with anxiety, that I am convinced. 

They sit and stand, three of them, perfectly still with their heads erect, some darker feathers like ears, methinks, increasing their resemblance to scrags, as where a small limb is broken off. I am much surprised at the remarkable stillness they preserve, instinctively relying on the resemblance to the ground for their protection.  

I had come along with a rapid whir and suddenly halted right against them, only two rods distant, and, as my eyes watered a little from skating against the wind, I was not convinced that they were birds till I had pulled out my glass and deliberately examined them. 

At length, on some signal which I did not perceive, they go with a whir, as if shot, off over the bushes.

Returning, I see a large hawk flapping and sailing low over the meadow. There is some dark color to its wings.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 31, 1855

A clear, cold, beautiful day. See January 31, 1854 ("It is a beautiful clear and mild winter day"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Fine skating. An unprecedented expanse of ice . . .skated up the river to explore further than I had been. See February 3, 1855 ("This will deserve to be called the winter of skating."); February 4, 1855 ("This is the sixth day of some kind of skating." ) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

I skated up as far as the boundary between Wayland and Sudbury just above Pelham’s Pond, about twelve miles, between 10 A. M. and one, quite leisurely. See October 15, 1851 ("Up the river in a boat to Pelham's Pond . . .Rowed about twenty-four miles, going and coming. In a straight line it would be fifteen and one half "); September 14, 1854 ("To opposite Pelham’s Pond by boat. . . We went up thirteen or fourteen miles at least."); July 31, 1859 ("This sixteen miles up, added to eleven down, makes about twenty-seven that I have boated on this river, to which may be added five or six miles of the Assabet.")

They sit and stand, three of them, perfectly still . . . instinctively relying on the resemblance to the ground for their protection. See February 11, 1856 (" See a partridge by the riverside. . . which at first I mistake for the top of a fence-post above the snow. . . t is as complete a deception as if it had designedly placed itself on the line of the fence and in the proper place for a post.")

They go with a whir, as if shot, off over the bushes. See April 22, 1852 ("Our dog sends off a partridge with a whir, far across the open field and the river, like a winged bullet."); December 14, 1855 ("They shoot off swift and steady, showing their dark-edged tails, . . . as it whirs off like a cannon-ball shot from a gun."); September 18, 1857 ("We started a pack of grouse, which went off with a whir like cannon-balls."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge.

A large hawk flapping and sailing low over the meadow . . . some dark color to its wings. See January 24, 1860 ("See a hawk sail over meadow and woods; not a hen-hawk; possibly a marsh hawk"); January 31, 1860 ("Saw a large hawk, probably hen-hawk.") Compare April 8, 1856 ("The marsh hawks flew in their usual irregular low tacking, wheeling, and circling flight, leisurely flapping and beating, now rising, now falling, in conformity with the contour of the ground.")

I look directly

at them yet am not convinced

they are partridges

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Skater and partridge in a whir

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550131

To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe.

May 28

Sunday. 

May 28, 2014

The F. hyemalis, fox-colored sparrow, rusty grackles, tree sparrows, have all gone by; also the purple finch. The snipe has ceased (?) to boom. I have not heard the phoebe of late, and methinks the bluebird and the robin are not heard so often (the former certainly not ). Those tumultuous morning concerts of sparrows, tree and song, hyemalis, and grackles, like leaves on the trees, are past, and the woodland quire will rather be diminished than increased henceforth. 

But, on the other hand, toads and frogs and insects, especially at night, all through June, betray by the sounds they make their sensitiveness to the increasing temperature, and theirs especially is the music which ushers in the summer. Each warmer night, like this, the toads and frogs sing with increased energy, and already fill the air with sound, though the bullfrogs have not yet begun to trump in earnest. To this add the hum and creak of insects. These still herald or expect the summer. The birds do not foretell that. 

12 M.  By boat to Lee's Cliff.  

The River is still so high that I am obliged to lower my mast at the bridges. Even this spring the arches of the stone bridge were completely concealed by the flood, and yet at midsummer I can sail under them without lowering my mast. 

At the old bridge at the hill, the water being quite smooth, I see a water-bug cross straight from the south to the north side, about six rods, furrowing the water in a waving line, there being no other insects near him on the surface. It takes but about a minute. 

Red clover at Clamshell, a day or two. 

The huckleberries, excepting the late, are now generally in blossom, their rich clear red contrasting with the light-green leaves; frequented by honey-bees, full of promise for the summer. One of the great crops of the year. These are the blossoms of the Vacciniece, or Whortleberry Family, which affords so large a proportion of our berries. 

The crop of oranges, lemons, nuts, and raisins, and figs, quinces, etc., etc., not to mention tobacco and the like, is of no importance to us compared with these. 

The berry-promising flower of the Vacciniece. This crop grows wild all over the country, — wholesome, bountiful, and free, — a real ambrosia — and yet men — the foolish demons that they are — devote themselves to culture of tobacco, inventing slavery and a thousand other curses as the means, — with infinite pains and inhumanity go raise tobacco all their lives. Tobacco is the staple instead of huckleberries.

The huckleberries

now generally in blossom

so full of promise.

Frequented by bees

their rich clear red contrasting

with the light-green leaves.

Wholesome bountiful

and free, this crop grows wild all

over the country.

Finding the low blackberry nearly open, I looked long and at last, where the vine ran over a rock on the south hillside, the reflected heat had caused it [to] open fully its large white blossoms. In such places, apparently yesterday. The high blackberry in similar places, at least to-day. 

At these rocks I hear a sharp peep, methinks of a peetweet dashing away. Four pale-green (?) eggs, finely sprinkled with brown, in a brown thrasher's nest, on the ground (!!) under a barberry bush. 

The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost. 

The crickets, though it is everywhere an oppressively warm day (yesterday I had a fire !! ) and I am compelled to take off my thinnish coat, are heard, particularly amid the rocks at Lee's Cliff. They must love warmth. As if it were already autumn there. 

See that common snake Coluber eximius of De Kay, — checkered adder, etc., etc., — forty-one inches long. A rather light brown above, with large dark-brown, irregularly quadrangular blotches, margined with black, and similar small ones, on the sides; abdomen light salmon-white, — whitest toward the head, — checkered with quadrangular blotches; very light bluish-slate in some lights and dark-slate or black in others. 

I should think from Storer's description that his specimen had lost its proper colors in spirits. He describes not the colors of a living snake, but those which alcohol might impart to it. It is as if you were to describe the white man as very red in the face, having seen a drunkard only.

It would be worth the while to ask ourselves weekly, 

Is our life innocent enough? Do we live inhumanely, toward man or beast, in thought or act?

To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe. 

The least conscious and needless injury inflicted on any creature is to its extent a suicide. What peace — or life — can a murderer have?The inhumanity of science concerns me, as when I am tempted to kill a rare snake that I may ascertain its species. I feel that this is not the means of acquiring true knowledge.

As I sail down toward the Clamshell Hill about an hour before sunset, the water is smoothed like glass, though the breeze is as strong as before. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1854

The woodland quire will rather be diminished than increased henceforth. See April 25, 1854 ("I hear the woods filled with the hum of insects, as if my hearing were affected; and thus the summer's quire begins. The silent spaces have begun to be filled with notes of birds and insects and the peep and croak and snore of frogs,"); June 25, 1854 ("Through June the song of the birds is gradually growing fainter."); August 2, 1854 ("he woodland quire has steadily diminished in volume."): August 20, 1854 ("When the red-eye ceases generally, then I think is a crisis, — the woodland quire is dissolved. That, if I remember, was about a fortnight ago. The concert is over.")

Even this spring the arches of the stone bridge were completely concealed by the flood, and yet at midsummer I can sail under them without lowering my mast. See May 8, 1854 (“The water has fallen a foot or more, but I cannot get under the stone bridge, so haul over the road.”); May 10, 1854 ("I drag and push my boat over the road at Deacon Farrar's brook, carrying a roller with me. . . . I make haste back with a fair wind and umbrella for sail.”); April 17, 1856 (“I make haste to take down my sail at the bridges, but at the stone arches forgot my umbrella, which was un avoidably crushed in part.”); April 22, 1857 (“We have to roll our boat over the road at the stone bridge”)

The huckleberries . . . now generally in blossom, their rich clear red contrasting with the light-green leaves, . . . full of promise for the summer. . . .See May 27, 1855 ("How interesting the huckleberries now generally in blossom . . . — countless wholesome red bells, beneath the fresh yellow green foliage!”)

Blackberries. See  June 16, 1858 ("How agreeable and wholesome the fragrance of the low blackberry blossom, reminding me of all the rosaceous fruit bearing plants, so near and dear to our humanity.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost. See May 29,1854 (" Saw what I thought my night warbler sparrow-like with chestnut stripes on breast white or whitish below and about eyes and perhaps chestnut head."); 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. ”According to Emerson the night warbler is "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 also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird

The inhumanity of science concerns me, as when I am tempted to kill a rare snake that I may ascertain its species.  See April 26, 1857 ("I have the same objection to killing a snake that I have to the killing of any other animal, yet the most humane man that I know never omits to kill one.”) Cf. Wordsworth, The Tables Turned ("We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art . . . Come forth, and bring with you a heart that watches and receives.")

To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe. See  February 20, 1857 ("I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other. I am that rock by the pond-side.?) May 12, 1857 (“He is a brother poet, this small gray bird (or bard), whose muse inspires mine. . . .One with the rocks and with us.”)
 

May 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

To be serene and

successful we must be one

with the universe.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, We must be one with the universe

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt-540528

Meditations under a bridge at midsummer.

August 13

August 13, 2022

The last was a melting night, and a carnival for mosquitoes.  

Could I not write meditations under a bridge at midsummer? 

Rowing home in haste before a black approaching storm from the northeast we paused under each bridge yesterday*— we who had been sweltering on the quiet waves — for the sake of a little shade and coolness, holding on by the piers with our hands. How grateful when, as I back through the bridges, the breeze of the storm blows through the piers, rippling the water and slightly cooling the sultry air! How fast the black cloud comes up and passes over my head.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 13, 1853

*To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.

Could I not write meditations under a bridge at midsummer? See May 30, 1857 (“Perhaps I could write meditations under a rock in a shower.”)

In haste before a black approaching storm. See August 9, 1851 (“I see a black cloud in the northern horizon and hear the muttering of thunder, and make haste.”)

August 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 13.

Rowing home in haste

before a black approaching 

storm from the northeast.

How fast the black cloud 

passes over my head.

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

 

tinyurl.com/HDT530813