To Second Division Brook. Early Spring

April 2.

To Second Division Brook. 

The rain cleared away yesterday afternoon, and today the air is remarkably clear. I can see far into the pine woods to tree behind tree, and one tower behind another of silvery needles, stage above stage, relieved with shade. 

The edge of the wood is not a plane surface, but has depth. 

Hear and see what I call the pine warbler, -- vetter vetter vetter vetter vet, -- the cool woodland sound. The first this year of the higher-colored birds, after the bluebird and the blackbird's wing. It so affects me as something more tender.

Together with the driftwood on the shore of the Assabet and the sawdust from Heywood's mill, I pick up teasel-heads from the factory with the wool still in them. How many tales the stream tells!
 
See the fine moss in the pastures with beautiful red stems even crimsoning the ground. This is its season.

The amelanchier buds look more forward than those of any shrub I notice. 

Observed some plowing yesterday. 

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

Tree behind tree, and one tower behind another of silvery needles, stage above stage, relieved with shade. See February, 5, 1852 ("The boughs, feathery boughs, of the white pines, tier above tier, reflect a silvery light against the darkness of the grove, as if both the silvery-lighted and greenish bough and the shadowy intervals of the shade behind belong to one tree.”); March 21, 1859  (“that fine silvery light reflected from its needles (perhaps their undersides) incessantly in motion.”); April 29, 1852 ("The pines have an appearance they have not worn before, yet not easy to describe. The mottled sunlight and shade, seen looking into the woods, is more like summer."); May 1, 1855 ("Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? Is it owing to the wind showing the under sides of the needles? Methinks you do not see it in the winter.”); May 3, 1852 ("The white pine is beautiful in the morning light--the early sunlight and the dew on it -- before the water is rippled and the morning song of the birds is quenched.”) May 17, 1852 ("I see dark pines in the distance in the sunshine, contrasting with the light fresh green of the deciduous trees.”); May 18, 1852 ("The forest, the dark-green pines, wonderfully distinct, near and erect, with their distinct dark stems, spiring tops, regularly disposed branches, and silvery light on their needles.”)

Hear and see what I call the pine warbler. See April 2, 1858(" I heard the note of the pine warbler, calling the pines to life.")

How many tales the stream tells! See note to September 16, 1856 (“William Monroe is said to have been the first who raised teasels about here.”) Also April 1, 1859 ("The river being so low, we see lines of sawdust perfectly level and parallel to one another on the side of the steep dark bank at the Hemlocks. . .”); April 1, 1858 ("It is remarkable that the river seems rarely to rise or fall gradually, but rather by fits and starts, and hence the water-lines, as indicated now by the sawdust, are very distinct parallel lines four or five or more inches apart.”); July 9, 1857 (“Am surprised to find how much carburetted hydrogen gas there is in the beds of sawdust by the side of this stream, as at the "Narrows."”): April 19, 1854 ("Yesterday, as I was returning down the Assabet, . . . I was surprised to find the river so full of sawdust from the pail-factory and Barrett's mill that I could not easily distinguish if the stone-heaps had been repaired. There was not a square three inches clear. And I saw the sawdust deposited by an eddy in one place on the bottom like a sand-bank a foot or more deep half a mile below the mill.”) April 1, 1854 ("The lines of sawdust from Barrett's mill at different heights on the steep, wet bank under the hemlocks rather enhance the impression of freshness and wild-ness, as if it were a new country.”); April 12, 1852 ("The lines of sawdust left at different levels on the shore is just hint enough of a sawmill on the stream above. “)

I feel my Maker blessing me.

June 22 

The world is a musical instrument. The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure. I awake to its music with the calmness of a lake when there is not a breath of wind. Whom shall I thank for it? 

To be calm, to be serene! 

Are our serene moments mere foretastes of heaven,  – or a transient realization of what might be the whole tenor of our lives? 

June 22, 2016

Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as never before in our lives. We become like a still lake of purest crystal. All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps. 

And without effort our depths are revealed to ourselves. Such clarity obtained by such pure means! -- by simple living, by honesty of purpose.

So is it with us.

We live and rejoice.

I feel my Maker blessing me. 

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, June 22, 1851

All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps. See Walden ("A lake . . . is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.")

There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath of wind; See Day would not dawn if it were not for the inward Morning.("Waves of serener life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather"); August 31, 1852 ("The wind is gone down; the water is smooth; a serene evening is approaching; the clouds are dispersing. . . .The reflections are the more perfect for the blackness of the water. This is the most glorious part of this day, the serenest, warmest, brightest part, and the most suggestive."); July 21, 1853 ("He who passes over a lake at noon, when the waves run, little imagines its serene and placid beauty at evening, as little as he anticipates his own serenity."). June 16, 1854 ("We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them. When we are not serene, we go not to them."); Walden ("By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent . . . I may be either the driftwood in the stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it")

The unclouded mind,

serene, pure, ineffable

like the western sky.

January 17, 1852

Serene as the sky,

emulating nature with

calm and peaceful lives.

October 3, 1859

So perfectly calm,

yet no man but myself sees

the Pond this morning.

April 14, 1852

See  also  Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Serene as the Sky and  Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A body awake in the world.

Sometimes we are calmed

like a still lake when there is

not a breath of wind.

All the world goes by

 and without effort our depths 

revealed to ourselves.

We touch the world and

feel our Maker blessing us.

June 22, 1851

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I feel my Maker blessing 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

My pulse must beat with Nature. After a hard day's work without a thought, turning my very brain into a mere tool, only in the quiet of evening do I so far recover my senses as to hear the cricket, which in fact has been chirping all day.

In my better hours I am conscious of the influx of a serene and unquestionable wisdom ... What is that other kind of life to which I am thus continually allured ? which alone I love ? Is it a life for this world? ... Are our serene moments mere foretastes of heaven, — joys gratuitously vouchsafed to us as a consolation, — or simply a transient realization of what might be the whole tenor of our lives? 

To be calm, to be serene! There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath of wind; there is the calmness of a stagnant ditch. So is it with us. 

Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to our selves. All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps. 

Such clarity! obtained by such pure means! by simple living, by honesty of purpose. We live and rejoice. I awoke into a music which no one about me heard. Whom shall I thank for it ? 

The luxury of wisdom! the luxury of virtue! Are there any intemperate in these things ? I feel my Maker blessing me. To the sane man the world is a musical instrument. The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure.

And I hear around me, but never in sight, the many wood thrushes whetting their steel-like notes. Such keen singers ! It takes a fiery heat, many dry pine leaves added to the furnace of the sun, to temper their strains! Always they are either rising or falling to a new strain. After what a moderate pause they deliver themselves again ! saying ever a new thing, avoiding repetition, methinks answering one another. While most other birds take their siesta, the wood thrush discharges his song. It is delivered like a bolas, or a piece of jingling steel.