A true April rain

April 16. 

Rather warm. 

In afternoon a true April rain, dripping and soaking into the earth and heard on the roof, which continuing, in the night it is very dark.  This is owing to both the absence of the moon and the presence of the clouds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 16, 1860

A true April rain. See April 6, 1860 ("Rainy, more or less, — April weather."); April 9, 1860 ("April 8 and 9. More or less rainy."); May 19, 1860 ("The last rain was April 16th")

The darkness in the east, the crescent of night.

November 25.

This morning the ground is again covered with snow, deeper than before.

In the afternoon walked to the east part of Lincoln.

Saw a tree on the turnpike full of hickory-nuts which had an agreeable appearance.

Saw also quite a flock of the pine grosbeak, a plump and handsome bird as big as a robin.

When returning between Bear Hill and the railroad, the sun had set and there was a very clear amber light in the west, and, turning about, we were surprised at the darkness in the east, the crescent of night, almost as if the air were thick, a thick snow-storm were gathering, which, as we had faced the west, we were not prepared for; yet the air was clear.

November 22, 2021

That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill.
Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine.

When surveying in the swamp on the 20th last, at sundown, I heard the owls.

Hosmer said: “If you ever minded it, it is about the surest sign of rain that there is. Don't you know that last Friday night you heard them and spoke of them, and the next day it rained?”

This time there were other signs of rain in abundance. But night before last,” said I, “when you were not here, they hooted louder than ever, and we have had no rain yet.”

At any rate, it rained hard the 21st, and by that rain the river was raised much higher than it has been this fall.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 25, 1851

Saw a tree on the turnpike full of hickory-nuts which had an agreeable appearance. See November 27, 1857 ("Was struck by the appearance of a small hickory near the wall, in the rocky ravine just above the trough. Its trunk was covered with loose scales unlike the hickories near it and as much as the shagbark; but probably it is a shaggy or scaly-barked variety of Carya glabra. [Carya glabra – pignut hickory]. The husk is not thick, like that of the shagbark, but quite thin, and splits into four only part way down. The shell is not white nor sharply four-angled like the other, but it is rather like a pignut."); January 7, 1860 ("See, at White Pond . . . a pignut hickory, which was quite full of nuts and still has many on it.") See also November 26, 1860 ("Better for us is the wild strawberry than the pineapple, the wild apple than the orange, the hazelnut or pignut than the cocoanut or almond, and not on account of their flavor merely, but the part they play in our education."); November 28, 1860 ("The rich man's son gets cocoanuts, and the poor man's, pignuts; but the worst of it is that the former never goes a-cocoanutting, and so he never gets the cream of the cocoanut as the latter does the cream of the pignut")

A flock of the pine grosbeak, a plump and handsome. See December 24, 1851 (“Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; . . .when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps, with red or crimson reflections.”);  December 11, 1855 ("When some rare northern bird like the pine grosbeak is seen thus far south in the Winter, he does not suggest poverty, but dazzles us with his beauty."); July 15, 1858 ("Saw two pine grosbeaks, male and female, . . .the male a brilliant red orange, —neck, head, breast beneath, and rump,—blackish wings and tail, with two white bars on wings. (Female, yellowish.) ")

The sun had set and there was a very clear amber light in the west, and, turning about, we were surprised at the darkness in the east, the crescent of night, almost as if the air were thick, . . yet the air was clear.  See November 25, 1857 ("I shiver about awhile on Pine Hill, waiting for the sun to set. Methinks the air is dusky soon after four these days. . . . There is the sun a quarter of an hour high, shining on it through a perfectly clear sky, but to my eye it is singularly dark or dusky. And now the sun has disappeared");November 27, 1853 ("The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk."); November 28, 1859 ("We make a good deal of the early twilights of these November days, they make so large a part of the afternoon.")

That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. See note to November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine."); November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to-night as the last."); See also November 25, 1858 ("You are surprised, late these afternoons, a half an hour perhaps before sunset, . . . to see the singularly bright yellow light of the sun reflected from pines. . .through the clear, cold air, the wind, it may be, blowing strong from the northwest.. . . and when I look round northeast I am greatly surprised by the very brilliant sunlight of which I speak, surpassing the glare of any noontide, it seems to me");

When surveying in the swamp on the 20th last, at sundown, I heard the owls. See November 18,1851 ("Surveying these days the Ministerial Lot. Now at sundown I hear the hooting of an owl,-- hoo hoo hoo, hoorer, hoo. . . .I heard it last evening. It is a sound admirably suited to the swamp and to the twilight woods.")

A dark and windy night .

October 2. 

A dark and windy night the last. It is a new value when darkness amounts to something positive. Each morning now, after rain and wind, is fresher and cooler, and leaves still green reflect a brighter sheen. 

Minott told me yesterday that he had never seen the seashore but once, and that was Noddle’s Island in the War of 1812. 

The garden is alive with migrating sparrows these mornings. The cat comes in from an early walk amid the weeds. She is full of sparrows and wants no more breakfast this morning, unless it be a saucer of milk, the dear creature. I saw her studying ornithology between the corn-rows.

As I approached Perch Pool the other day, half a dozen frogs leaped into it and buried themselves in the mass of callitriche at the bottom. I stood looking for perch a minute or two, when one after another up came the frogs from out the callitriche, just as a piece of cork would rise by mere buoyancy to the surface; and then, by a distinct effort, they let go all, drop anchor, elevate or let float up their heels, and lie spread out on the surface. They were probably Rana fontinalis.  

Sailed to Baker Farm with a strong northwest wind.

Got a peck of the small long-bunched grapes now turned purple under Lee’s Cliff. One or two vines bear very plentifully. The bunches are about six inches long by one and a half, and quite dense and cylindrical commonly. They are now apparently just in their prime, to judge from color. Considerably later than the Vitis Labrusca, but are not good. [Mother [made] a nice jelly of them afterward.] 

A large chocolate-colored puffball “smokes. ”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 2, 1858

Each morning now, after rain and wind, is fresher and cooler, and leaves still green reflect a brighter sheen. See September 20, 1853 (It rained very hard while we were aboard the steamer."); September 20, 1854 ("Windy rain-storm last night"); September 20, 1856 ("Rain in afternoon. Rain again in the night, hard."); ; September 20, 1857 ("This is our first fall rain, and makes a dividing line between the summer and fall."); September 20, 1860 ("Rainy in forenoon.")


Minott told me yesterday that he had never seen the seashore but once in the War of 1812. . See March 23, 1854("Minott confesses to me to-day that he has not been to Boston since the last war, or 1815. Aunt said that he had not been ten miles from home since”)  January 8, 1857 ("Minott says he has lived where he now does as much as sixty years. He has not been up in town for three years, on account of his rheumatism ");  and note to October 4, 1851 ("Minott is, perhaps, the most poetical farmer — who most realizes to me the poetry of the farmer's life — that I know . . . He loves to walk in a swamp in windy weather and hear the wind groan through the pines.");

The garden is alive with migrating sparrows these mornings. See October 4, 1859 (“Birds are now seen more numerously than before, as if called out by the fine weather, probably many migrating birds from the north.”); October 8, 1855 ("Flocks of tree sparrows by river, slightly warbling. Hear a song sparrow sing. See apparently white-throated sparrows . . .”); October 8, 1856 (“The trees and weeds by the Turnpike are all alive this pleasant afternoon with twittering sparrows .”)

Redness gradually deepening till the darkness prevails.

July 20.

At evening the eastern clouds, the western clouds, and the atmosphere of the west horizon have one history successively – a fainter glow and redness, gradually and by stages deepening till the darkness prevails.

We see from the hill darkness infolding the village, collected first in the elm-tops. If it were not for the lightcolored barns and white houses, it would already be dark there. The redness of the clouds, or the golden or coppery glow, appears to endure almost till starlight. Then the cloudlets in the west turn rapidly dark, the shadow of night advances in the east, and the first stars become visible. The pitch pine woods are heavy and dark, but the river is full of golden light and more conspicuous than by day.

It is starlight. We see the first star in the southwest, and know not how much earlier we might have seen it had we looked. Now the first whip-poor-will sings hollowly in the dark pitch pine wood on Bear Garden Hill, as if the night had never ceased, and it had never ceased to sing, only now we heard it. Night is seen settling down with mists on Fair Haven Bay. The stars are few and distant; the fireflies fewer still.

Now quite into evening. There is a second glow on the few low western cloudlets, when we thought the sun had bid us a final adieu. - Those small clouds, the rearmost guard of day, which were wholly dark, are again lit up for a moment with a dull-yellowish glow and again darken.

And now the evening redness deepens till all the west or northwest horizon is red; as if the sky were rubbed there with some rich Indian pigment, a permanent dye; as if the Artist of the world had mixed his red paints on the edge of the inverted saucer of the sky. 

An exhilarating, cheering redness, most wholesome. There should be a red race of men. I would look into the west at this hour till my face permanently reflects that red. It is like the stain of some berries crushed along the edge of the sky. 

The crescent moon, meanwhile, grows more silvery, and, as it sinks in the west, more yellowish, and the outline of the old moon in its arms is visible if you do not look directly at it. Some dusky redness lasts almost till the last traces of daylight disappear, about 10 o'clock, the same time the moon goes down.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1852

The redness of the clouds, or the golden or coppery glow, appears to endure almost till starlight. Then the cloudlets in the west turn rapidly dark, the shadow of night advances in the east, and the first stars become visible. It is starlight. You see the first star in the southwest, and know not how much earlier you might have seen it had you looked. See August 8, 1851 ("Starlight! that would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise.”); May 8, 1852 (“Starlight marks conveniently a stage in the evening, i. e. when the first star can be seen. ”); June 28,1852 ("Now it is starlight; perhaps that dark cloud in the west has concealed the evening star before . . .Starlight! That would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise. That is an epoch, when the last traces of daylight have disappeared and the night (nox) has fairly set in.”); June 30, 1852 (“It is starlight about half an hour after sunset to-night; i. e. the first stars appear”); July 12, 1852 (“Now, a quarter after nine, as I walk along the river-bank, long after starlight, and perhaps an hour or more after sunset, I see some of those high-pillared clouds of the day, in the southwest, still reflecting a downy light from the regions of day, they are so high.”); July 21, 1852 ("Do we perceive such a deep Indian red after the first starlight at any other season as now in July?”)

The stars are few and distant; the fireflies fewer still. Compare July 7, 1852 ("I am older than last year; the mornings are further between; the days are fewer.")

The horns of the moon

look sharp, still cloud-like, in the

midst of a blue space.

The darkness that first 

collects in the elm-tops now 

infolds the village.

The shadow of night

advances in the east and the

first stars visible.

We see the first star

and know not if we might have

seen it earlier.

The river is full

of golden light – the pitch pine

woods heavy and dark.

The first whip-poor-will

sings in the dark pitch pine wood

on Bear Garden Hill.

The whip-poor-will sings

like it never ceased – but we

hear it only now.

Quite into evening

the stars are few and distant –

fireflies fewer still.

And now the evening

redness deepens like paint on

the edge of the sky.

Redness gradually 

by stages deepening till 

the darkness prevails.

Old moon visible

in the arms of the crescent –

if we do not look.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Redness gradually deepening till the darkness prevails.

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