A Book of the Seasons: Fireflies, winged sparks of fire!

  I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

Many men walk by day; few walk by night.

It is a very different season.

Instead of the sun

there are the moon and stars;

instead of the wood thrush

there is the whip-poor-will;

instead of butterflies –

fireflies, winged sparks of fire!

July 16, 1850  

June 3, 2016

June 3.  It has been a sultry day, and a slight thunder-shower, and now I see fireflies in the meadows at evening. June 3, 1852

June 4. George Minott says he saw many lightning-bugs a warm evening the forepart of this week, after the rains. Probably it was the 29th. June 4, 1853

June 7. Mosquitoes are very troublesome in the woods . . . This muggy evening I see fireflies, the first I have seen or heard of at least. June 7, 1854 

June 7. Fireflies pretty numerous over the river, though we have had no thunder-showers of late.  Mosquitoes quite troublesome here. June 7, 1858

June 8. See lightning-bugs to-night. June 8, 1859

June 11. When I get away from the town and deeper into the night, I hear whip-poor-wills, and see fireflies in the meadow. June 11, 1851 

Away from the town

and deeper into the night –

whip-poor-wills, fireflies.

June 11, 1851

June 13. A few fireflies in the meadow. Do they shine, though invisibly, by day? Is their candle lighted by day? June 13, 1851

June 14.  Where there was only one firefly in a dozen rods, I hastily ran to one which had crawled up to the top of a grass head and exhibited its light, and instantly another sailed in to it , showing its light also; but my presence made them extinguish their lights. The latter retreated, and the former crawled slowly down the stem. It appeared to me that the first was a female who thus revealed her place to the male, who was also making known his neighborhood as he hovered about, both showing their lights that they might come together. It was like a mistress who had climbed to the turrets of her castle and exhibited there a blazing taper for a signal, while her lover had displayed his light on the plain. If perchance she might have any lovers abroad. June 14, 1851

June 15.  It is candle light. The fishes leap. The meadows sparkle with the coppery light of fireflies . June 15, 1852

June 16. Heat lightning in the horizon. A sultry night. A flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening! Have not the fireflies in the meadow relation to the stars above, étincelant?  When the darkness comes, we see stars beneath also  . . . Do not the stars, too, show their light for love, like the fireflies? There are northern lights, shooting high up withal. June 16, 1852

When the darkness comes

do not the stars like fireflies

show their light for love?

June 16, 1852

June 16. The meadows full of lightning-bugs to-night; first seen the 14th. June 16, 1860 

June 16. It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th, viz.: - • Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.• Hylodes cease to peep.• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.• Lightning-bugs first seen.• Bullfrogs trump generally.• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.• Sleep with open window.• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay. June 16, 1860 

June 17. In the damp, warm evening after the rain, the fireflies appear to be more numerous than ever. June 17, 1852 

June 22. The fireflies in the meadows are very numerous, as if they had replenished their lights from the lightning. June 22, 1852 

June 25.  The fireflies appear to be flying, though they may be stationary on the grass stems, for their perch and the nearness of the ground are obscured by the darkness, and now you see one here and then another there, as if it were one in motion. Their light is singularly bright and glowing to proceed from a living creature. Nature loves variety in all things, and so she adds glow-worms to fireflies, though I have not noticed any this year.  June 25, 1852

You see one here and

another there as if  it

were one in motion.

June 25, 1852

June 25.  What were the firefly's light, if it were not for darkness? The one implies the other. June 25, 1852 

 Why the firefly's light, 

if it were not for darkness? 

One implies the other.  

June 25, 1852

June 30. It is starlight about half an hour after sunset to-night; i. e. the first stars appear . . . Ten or fifteen minutes after, the fireflies are observed, at first about the willows on the Causeway, where the evening is further advanced. June 30, 1852

July 12. Here and there a lightning-bug shows his greenish light over the tops of the trees. July 12, 1851

July 16.  Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season.Instead of the sun, there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood thrush, there is the whip-poor-will; instead of butterflies, fireflies, winged sparks of fire! who would have believed it? July 16, 1850

July 20.   The stars are few and distant; the fireflies fewer still.   July 20, 1852 

July 20. There are a few fireflies about. Green, their light looks sometimes, and crickets are heard. July 20, 1853

August 2.  A few fireflies in the meadows. I am uncertain whether that so large and bright and high was a firefly or a shooting star. Shooting stars are but fireflies of the firmament. August 2, 1854 

August 5.  I see a solitary firefly over the woods.  August 5, 1851

August 8. The fireflies are not so numerous as they have been . August 8, 1851

August 21.  A few fireflies still at night. August 21, 1860

September 3.  See no fireflies.  September 3, 1852

September 7. One or two fireflies. September 7, 1851

September 8.  Perhaps it will be found that when the grass ceases to be fresh and green, or after June, the birds have ceased to sing, and that the fireflies, too, no longer in myriads sparkle in the meadows.  September 8, 1851

See also

 A Book of the Seasons , by Henry Thoreau, June Days

Magically at dusk

the woods fill with fireflies and

the flute of the thrush.

zphx July 29, 2013

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies, winged sparks of fire!

 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

To see the lilies open

July 4.  Sunday.

July 4, 2022

3 A. M. - To Conantum, to see the lilies open.

I hear an occasional crowing of cocks in distant barns, as has been their habit for how many thousand years. It was so when I was young; and it will be so when I am old.

I hear the croak of a tree-toad as I am crossing the yard.

I am surprised to find the dawn so far advanced.  There is a yellowish segment of light in the east, paling a star and adding sensibly to the light of the waning and now declining moon.

There is very little dew on the uplands.

I hear a little twittering and some clear singing from the seringo and the song sparrow as I go along the back road, and now and then the note of a bullfrog from the river.

The light in the east has acquired a reddish tinge near the horizon.  Small wisps of cloud are already fuscous and dark, seen against the light, as in the west at evening.

It being Sunday morning, I hear no early stirring farmer driving over a bridge.  The crickets are not remarkably loud at this season. The sound of a whip-poor-will is wafted from the woods.  Now, on the Corner road, the hedges are alive with twittering sparrows, a bluebird or two, etc. 

The daylight now balances the moonlight.

How short the nights! The last traces of day have not disappeared much before 10 o'clock, or perchance 9.30, and before 3 A. M. you see them again in the east, probably 2.30, leaving about five hours of solid night, the sun so soon coming round again.

The robins sing, but not so loud and long as in the spring. I have not been awakened by them latterly in the mornings. Is it my fault? 

Ah! those mornings when you are awakened in the dawn by the singing, the matins, of the birds!

 

I hear the dumping sound of frogs now on the causeway.

Some small clouds in the east are reddish fuscous. There is no fog on the river nor in the meadows.

The kingbird twitters (?) on the black willows.

Methinks I saw the not yet extinguished lights of one or two fireflies in the darker ruts in the grass, in Conant's meadow.

The moon yields to the sun. She pales even in the presence of his dawn.

It is chiefly the spring birds that I hear at this hour, and in each dawn the spring is thus revived.

The notes of the sparrows and the bluebirds and the robin have a prominence now which they have not by day.

The light is more and more general, and some low bars begin to look bluish as well as reddish. (Else-where the sky wholly clear of clouds.) The dawn is at this stage far lighter than the brightest moonlight. I write by it. Yet the sun will not rise for some time.

Those bars are reddening more purplish, or lilac rather, light in the eastern sky. (And now, descending to the Cliff by the riverside, I cannot see the low horizon and its phenomena.)

I love to go through these old apple orchards so irregularly set out. Sometimes two trees standing close together. The rows of grafted fruit will never tempt me to wander amid them like these.

A bittern leaves the shore at my approach. I suppose it is he whose excrement has whitened the rocks, as if a mason had spilled his whitewash.

A nighthawk squeaks and booms, before sunrise.

The insects shaped like shad-flies (some which I see are larger and yellowish) begin to leave their cases (and selves?) on the stems of the grasses and the rushes in the water. I find them so weak they can hardly hold on.

I hear the black-bird's conqueree, and the kingfisher darts away with his alarum and outstretched neck.

Every lily is shut.

Sunrise. I see it gilding the top of the hill behind me, but the sun itself is concealed by the hills and woods on the east shore.

A very slight fog begins to rise now in one place on the river.

There is something serenely glorious and memorable to me in the sight of the first cool sunlight now gilding the eastern extremity of the bushy island in Fair Haven, that wild lake.

The subdued light and the repose remind me of Hades. In such sunlight there is no fever. It is such an innocent pale yellow as the spring flowers. It is the pollen of the sun, fertilizing plants. The color of the earliest spring flowers is as cool and innocent as the first rays of the sun in the morning falling on woods and hills.

The fog not only rises upward (about two feet), but at once there is a motion from the sun over the surface.

What means this endless motion of water-bugs collected in little groups on the surface and ceaselessly circling about their centre, as if they were a family hatched from the eggs on the under side of a pad? Is not this motion intended partly to balk the fishes? Methinks they did not begin to move till sunrise. Where were they? 

And now I see an army of skaters advancing in loose array, of chasseurs or scouts, as Indian allies are drawn in old books.

Now the rays of the sun have reached my seat, a few feet above the water; flies begin to buzz, mosquitoes to be less troublesome.

A hummingbird hums by over the pads up the river, as if looking, like myself, to see if lilies have blossomed.

The birds begin to sing generally, and, if not loudest, at least most noticeably on account of the quietness of the hour, just before -- a few minutes before -- sunrise. They do not sing so incessantly and earnestly, as a regular thing, half an hour later.

Carefully looking both up and down the river, I could perceive that the lilies began to open about fifteen minutes after the sun from over the opposite bank fell on them, which was perhaps three quarters of an hour after sunrise (which is about 4.30), and one was fully expanded about twenty minutes later.  When I returned over the bridge about 6.15, there were perhaps a dozen open ones in sight. 

It was very difficult to find one not injured by insects.  Even the buds which were just about to expand were frequently bored quite through, and the water had rotted them. You must be on hand early to anticipate insects.

One thimble-berry which will be quite ripe by to-morrow.

Indigo almost expanded.

I perceive the meadow fragrance on the causeway.

Bobolinks still.

I bring home a dozen perfect lily buds, — all I can find within many rods, — which have never yet opened; I prepare a large pan of water; I cut their stems quite short; I turn back their calyx-leaves with my fingers, so that they may float upright; I touch the points of their petals, and breathe or blow on them, and toss them in. They spring open rapidly, or gradually expand in the course of an hour, all but one or two. 

At 12.30 P. M., I perceive that the lilies in the river have begun to shut up. The water has gone down so much that I can stand on the shore and pluck as many as I want, and they are the fairest ones, concealed by the pickerel-weed, often the whole plant high and dry. I go again to the river at 2.30 P. M., and every lily is shut.

I will here tell the history of my rosaceous lilies plucked the 1st of July.

• They were buds at the bottom of a pitcher of water all the 2d, having been kept in my hat part of the day before.
• On the morning of the 3d I assisted their opening, and put them in water, as I have described; but they did not shut up at noon, like those in the river, but at dark, their petals, at least, quite tight and close.
• They all opened again in the course of the forenoon of the 4th, but had not shut up at 10 o'clock P. M., though I found them shut in the morning of the 5th.

May it be that they can bear only a certain amount of light, and these, being in the shade, remained open longer? ( I think not, for they shut up in the river that quite cloudy day, July 1st.) Or is their vitality too little to permit [them] to perform their regu- lar functions? 

Can that meadow fragrance come from the purple summits of the eupatorium? 

I looked down on the river behind Dodd's at 2.30 P. M., a slate-colored stream with a scarcely perceptible current, with a male and female shore; the former, more abrupt, of button-bushes and willows, the other, flat, of grass and pickerel-weed alone. Beyond the former, the water being deep, extends a border or fringe of green and purplish pads lying perfectly flat on the surface, but on the latter side the pads extend a half a rood or a rod beyond the pickerel-weed, — shining pads reflecting the light, dotted with white or yellow lilies. This sort of ruff does the river wear, and so the land is graduated off to water.

A tender place in nature, an exposed vein, and nature making a feint to bridge it quite over with a paddy film, with red-winged black- birds liquidly warbling and whistling on the willows, and kingbirds on the elms and oaks; these pads, if there is any wind, rippling with the water and helping to smooth and allay it. It looks tender and exposed, as if it were naturally subterranean, and now, with these shields of pads, held scale-like by long threads from the bottom, she makes a feint to bridge it.

So floats the Musketaquid over its segment of the sphere.

Methinks there is not even a lily, white or yellow, in Walden.

I see perfectly formed pouts by the shore of the river, one inch long.

The great spatterdock lily is a rich yellow at a little distance, and, seen lying on its great pads, it is an indispensable evidence of the fertility of the river.  The gratiola begins to yellow the mud by the riverside. The Lysimachia lanceolata var. hybrida is out, in the meadows. 

The Rosa nitida (?) appears to be now out of bloom.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 4, 1852

the light of the waning and now declining moon. See June 30, 1852 ('Moon nearly full; rose a little before sunset.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July Moonlight

To see the lilies open. See June 21, 1853 ("4.30 A.M.––Up river for lilies . . .The few lilies begin to open about 5."); July 1, 1852 ("...to see the white lilies in blossom...to breathe the atmosphere of lilies, and get the full impression which lilies are fitted to make"); July 11, 1852 ("The first lily I noticed opened about half an hour after sunrise, or at 5 o'clock."); July 17, 1854 ("I go to observe the lilies . . .I think that I could tell when it was 12 o'clock within half an hour by the lilies.")

They shut up in the river that quite cloudy day, July 1st. See July 1, 1852 ("The freshly opened lilies are a pearly white, and though the water amid the pads is quite unrippled, the passing air gives a slight oscillating, boat-like motion to and fro to the flowers, like boats held fast by their cables.After eating our luncheon at Rice's landing, I can not find one open anywhere for the rest of the day.")

The Rosa nitida (?) appears to be now out of bloom. See June 16, 1854 ("The Rosa nitida grows along the edge of the ditches, the half-open flowers showing the deepest rosy tints, so glowing that they make an evening or twilight of the surrounding afternoon, seeming to stand in the shade or twilight. Already the bright petals of yesterday's flowers are thickly strewn along on the black mud at the bottom of the ditch."); July 8, 1854 ("The Rosa nitida I think has [been] some time done") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

A Book of the Seasons: first fireflies in June

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

Many men walk by day;

few walk by night.

It is a very different season.

Instead of the sun,

there are the moon and stars;

instead of the wood thrush,

there is the whip-poor-will;

instead of butterflies,

fireflies--

winged sparks of fire!

July 16, 1850

June 3. It has been a sultry day, and a slight thunder-shower, and now I see fireflies in the meadows at evening. June 3, 1852


June 4. George Minott says he saw many lightning-bugs a warm evening the forepart of this week, after the rains. Probably it was the 29th. June 4, 1853


June 7. Mosquitoes are very troublesome in the woods . . . This muggy evening I see fireflies, the first I have seen or heard of at least. June 7, 1854


June 7. Fireflies pretty numerous over the river, though we have had no thunder-showers of late. Mosquitoes quite troublesome here. June 7, 1858


June 8.  See lightning-bugs to-night. June 8, 1859


June 11. When I get away from the town and deeper into the night, I hear whip-poor-wills, and see fireflies in the meadow. June 11, 1851

Away from the town

and deeper into the night --

whip-poor-wills, fireflies.

June 11, 1851

June 13. A few fireflies in the meadow. Do they shine, though invisibly, by day? Is their candle lighted by day? June 13, 1851


June 14. Where there was only one firefly in a dozen rods, I hastily ran to one which had crawled up to the top of a grass head and exhibited its light, and instantly another sailed in to it , showing its light also; but my presence made them extinguish their lights. The latter retreated, and the former crawled slowly down the stem. It appeared to me that the first was a female who thus revealed her place to the male, who was also making known his neighborhood as he hovered about, both showing their lights that they might come together. It was like a mistress who had climbed to the turrets of her castle and exhibited there a blazing taper for a signal, while her lover had displayed his light on the plain. If perchance she might have any lovers abroad. June 14, 1851


June 15. It is candle light. The fishes leap. The meadows sparkle with the coppery light of fireflies. June 15, 1852


June 16. Heat lightning in the horizon. A sultry night. A flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening! Have not the fireflies in the meadow relation to the stars above, étincelant?   When the darkness comes, we see stars beneath also . . . Do not the stars, too, show their light for love, like the fireflies?  June 16, 1852

When the darkness comes

do not the stars like fireflies

show their light for love?

June 16, 1852

June 16. The meadows full of lightning-bugs to-night; first seen the 14th. June 16, 1860

June 16. It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th, viz.:

• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M

• Hylodes cease to peep.

• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease

• Lightning-bugs first seen

• Bullfrogs trump generally.

• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.

• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular

• Sleep with open window.

• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.

June 16, 1860

June 17. In the damp, warm evening after the rain, the fireflies appear to be more numerous than ever. June 17, 1852

June 22. The fireflies in the meadows are very numerous, as if they had replenished their lights from the lightning. June 22, 1852

June 25. The fireflies appear to be flying, though they may be stationary on the grass stems, for their perch and the nearness of the ground are obscured by the darkness, and now you see one here and then another there, as if it were one in motion. Their light is singularly bright and glowing to proceed from a living creature. June 25, 1852

You see one here and

another there as if it

were one in motion.

June 25, 1852

June 25. What were the firefly's light, if it were not for darkness? The one implies the other. June 25, 1852

Why the firefly's light,

if it were not for darkness?

One implies the other.

June 25, 1852

June 30. It is starlight about half an hour after sunset to-night; i. e. the first stars appear. . . .Ten or fifteen minutes after, the fireflies are observed, at first about the willows on the Causeway, where the evening is further advanced. June 30, 1852

Magically at dusk

the woods fill with fireflies and

the flute of the thrush.

zphx July 29, 2013

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, first fireflies in June

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 © 2009-2023

The midsummer night's moon.

July 20.

 

July 20, 2012

To Nawshawtuct at moonrise with Sophia, by boat.

Moon apparently fulled yesterday.

A low mist in crusts the meadow, -- not so perceptible when we are on the water. Now we row through a thin low mist about as high as one's head, now we come to a place where there is no mist on the river or meadow, apparently where a slight wind stirs.

The gentle susurrus from the leaves of the trees on shore is very enlivening, as if Nature were freshening, awakening to some enterprise. There is but little wind, but its sound, incessantly stirring the leaves at a little distance along the shore, heard not seen, is very inspiriting. It is like an everlasting dawn or awakening of nature to some great purpose.

As we go up the hill we smell the sweet briar.

The trees are now heavy, dark masses without tracery, not as in spring or early in June; but I forgot to say that the moon was at first eclipsed by a vast black bank of cloud in the east horizon, which seemed to rise faster than it, and threatened to obscure it all the night.

But suddenly she rose above it, and when, a few moments after, we thought to look again for the threatening cloud-bank, it had vanished, or a mere filmy outline could be faintly traced beneath her.

It was the eclipse of her light behind it that made this evil look so huge and threatening, but now she had triumphed over it and eclipsed it with her light.

It had vanished, like an ugly dream.

So is it ever with evils triumphed over, which we have put behind us.

What was at first a huge dark cloud in the east which threatened to eclipse the moon the livelong night is now suddenly become a filmy vapor, not easy to be detected in the sky, lit by her rays.

She comes on thus, magnifying her dangers by her light, at first displaying, revealing them in all their hugeness and blackness, exaggerating, then casting them behind her into the light concealed.

She goes on her way triumphing through the clear sky like a moon which was threatened by dark clouds at her rising but rose above them. That black, impenetrable bank which threatened to be the ruin of all our hopes is now a filmy dash of vapor with a faint-purplish tinge, far in the orient sky.

From the hilltop we see a few distant lights in farmhouses down below, hard to tell where they are, yet better revealing where they are than the sun does.  But cottage lights are not conspicuous now as in the autumn.

As we looked, a bird flew across the disk of the moon.

Saw two skunks carrying their tails about some rocks. Singular that, of all the animated creation, chiefly these skunks should be abroad in this moonlight.

This is the midsummer night's moon.

We have come round the east side of the hill to see the moon from amid the trees. I like best to see its light falling far in amid the trees and along the ground before me, while itself is hidden behind them or one side.

It is cool, methinks with a peculiar coolness, as it were from the luxuriance of the foliage, as never in June. At any rate we have had no such sultry nights this month as in June.

There is a greater contrast between night and day now, reminding me that even in Hindostan they freeze ice in shallow vessels at night in summer (?).

There is a mist very generally dispersed, which gives a certain mellowness to the light, a wavingness apparently, a creaminess.

Yet the light of the moon is a cold, almost frosty light, white on the ground.

There are a few fireflies about. Green, their light looks sometimes, and crickets are heard.

You are pretty sure also to hear some human music, vocal or instrumental, far or near.

The masses of the trees and bushes would be called black, if our knowledge that they are leaves did not make us call them dark - green.

Here is the Pycnanthemum lanceolatum near the boat's place, which I scent in the dark. It has been out some days, for some flowers are quite withered.

I hear from the copses or bushes along the shore, returning, a faint everlasting fine song from some small cricket, or rather locust, which it required the stillness of night to reveal.

A bat hovers about us.

How oily smooth the water in this moonlight! And the apparent depth where stars are reflected frightens Sophia.

These Yankee houses and gardens seen rising beyond this oily moonlit water, on whose surface the circling insects are like sparks of fire, are like Italian dwellings on the shores of Italian lakes.

When we have left the boat and the river, we are surprised, looking back from the bank, to see that the water is wholly concealed under a white mist, though it was scarcely perceptible when we were in its midst.

The few bullfrogs are the chief music.

I do not know but walnuts are peculiarly handsome by moonlight, -- seeing the moon rising through them, and the form of their leaves.

I felt some nuts. They have already their size and that bracing, aromatic scent.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1853

The moon was at first eclipsed by a vast black bank of cloud in the east horizon, which threatened to obscure it all the night  See June 1, 1852 ("The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights")

Singular that, of all the animated creation, chiefly these skunks should be abroad in this moonlight. See June 20, 1853 (“ The moon full. . . . Saw a little skunk coming up the river-bank in the woods at the White Oak.”); July 12, 1851 ("I see a skunk on Bear Garden Hill stealing noiselessly away from me, while the moon shines over the pitch pines")

There are a few fireflies about. See July 20, 1852 ("The stars are few and distant; the fireflies fewer still.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies

You are pretty sure also to hear some human music, vocal or instrumental, far or near. See June 14, 1851 ("How sweet and encouraging it is to hear the sound of some artificial music from the midst of woods or from the top of a hill at night, borne on the breeze from some distant farmhouse, — the human voice or a flute!"); July 12, 1851 ("I hear a human voice,"); August 5, 1851 ("I hear now from Bear Garden Hill — I rarely walk by moonlight without hearing — the sound of a flute, or a horn, or a human voice")

The moon is full, and I walk alone.

July 12.

July 12, 2012

8 P. M. Now at least the moon is full, and I walk alone, which is best by night, if not by day always.

Your companion must sympathize with the present mood. The conversation must be located where the walkers are, and vary exactly with the scene and events and the contour of the ground. 

Farewell to those who will talk of nature unnaturally, whose presence is an interruption. I know but one with whom I can walk. I might as well be sitting in a bar-room with them as walk and talk with most. We are never side by side in our thoughts, and we cannot hear each other's silence. Indeed, we cannot be silent. We are forever breaking silence, that is all, and mending nothing.

How can they keep together who are going different ways! 

I start a sparrow from her three eggs in the grass, where she had settled for the night.

The earliest corn is beginning to show its tassels now, and I scent it as I walk, — its peculiar dry scent.

(This afternoon I gathered ripe blackberries, and felt as if the autumn had commenced. )

Now perchance many sounds and sights only remind me that they once said something to me, and are so by association interesting. I go forth to be reminded of a previous state of existence, if perchance any memento of it is to be met with hereabouts.

I have no doubt that Nature preserves her integrity. Nature is in as rude health as when Homer sang. We may at last by our sympathies be well.

I see a skunk on Bear Garden Hill stealing noiselessly away from me, while the moon shines over the pitch pines, which send long shadows down the hill.  Now, looking back, I see it shining on the south side of farmhouses and barns with a weird light, for I pass here half an hour later than last night.

I smell the huckleberry bushes.

I hear a human voice, — some laborer singing after his day's toil, which I do not often hear.  Loud it must be, for it is far away. Methinks I should know it for a white man's voice.

Some strains have the melody of an instrument.

Now I hear the sound of a bugle in the Corner,  reminding me of poetic wars; a few flourishes and the bugler has gone to rest.

At the foot of the Cliff hill I hear the sound of the clock striking nine, as distinctly as within a quarter of a mile usually, though there is no wind.

The moonlight is more perfect than last night; hardly a cloud in the sky, — only a few fleecy ones. There is more serenity and more light.

I hear that sort of throttled or chuckling note as of a bird flying high, now from this side, then from that.

Methinks when I turn my head I see Wachusett from the side of the hill.

I smell the butter-and-eggs as I walk.

I am startled by the rapid transit of some wild animal across my path, a rabbit or a fox, — or you hardly know, if it be not a bird.

Looking down from the cliffs, the leaves of the tree-tops shine more than ever by day.

Here and there a lightning-bug shows his greenish light over the tops of the trees.

As I return through the orchard, a foolish robin bursts away from his perch unnaturally, with the habits of man.

The air is remarkably still and unobjectionable on the hilltop, and the whole world below is covered as with a gossamer blanket of moonlight. It is just about as yellow as a blanket. It is a great dimly burnished shield with darker blotches on its surface. You have lost some light, it is true, but you have got this simple and magnificent stillness, brooding like genius.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 12, 1851

The moon is full, and I walk alone. See July 16, 1850 ("Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season. Instead of the sun, there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood thrush, there is the whip-poor-will; instead of butterflies, fireflies, winged sparks of fire!"); August  31?, 1850 ("My friends wonder that I love to walk alone in solitary fields and woods by night . ")

I pass here half an hour later than last night. See July 11, 1851 ("We go toward Bear Garden Hill. The sun is setting. . . . The moon is silvery still, not yet inaugurated.")

(This afternoon I gathered ripe blackberries, and felt as if the autumn had commenced.) See August 18, 1856 ("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.")

I smell the huckleberry bushes. See August 12, 1851 ("How wholesome the taste of huckleberries, when now by moonlight I feel for them amid the bushes!")

I hear a human voice, — some laborer singing after his day's toil. See August 15, 1851 ("I hear now from Bear Garden Hill — I rarely walk by moonlight without hearing — the sound of a flute, or a horn, or a human voice.")

Here and there a lightning-bug shows his greenish light over the tops of the trees. See August 5, 1851 ("I see a solitary firefly over the woods".)

July 12. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July 12

Now at least the moon 

is full, and I walk alone, 

which is best by night.

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 © 2009-2021

An evening for poets to describe.

June 14.

Saturday.

Full moon last night.

Set out on a walk to Conantum at 7 P. M. A serene evening, the sun going down behind clouds, a few white or slightly shaded piles of clouds floating in the eastern sky, but a broad, clear, mellow cope left for the moon to rise into. An evening for poets to describe.

Met a man driving home his cow from pasture and stopping to chat with his neighbor; then a boy, who had set down his pail in the road to stone a bird most perseveringly, whom I heard afterward behind me telling his pail to be quiet in a tone of assumed anger, because it squeaked under his arm.

As I proceed along the back road I hear the lark still singing in the meadow, and the bobolink, and the gold robin on the elms, and the swallows twittering about the barns.

A small bird chasing a crow high in the air, who is going home at night.

All nature is in an expectant attitude.

Before Goodwin's house, at the opening of the Sudbury road, the swallows are diving at a tortoise-shell cat, who curvets and frisks rather awkwardly, as if she did not know whether to be scared or not.

And now, having proceeded a little way down this road, the sun having buried himself in the low cloud in the west and hung out his crimson curtains,  I hear, while sitting by the wall, the sound of the stake-driver at a distance, — like that made by a man pumping in a neighboring farmyard, watering his cattle, or like chopping wood before his door on a frosty morning, and I can imagine like driving a stake in a meadow.

The pumper.

I immediately went in search of the bird, but, after going a third of a mile, it did not sound much nearer, and the two parts of the sound did not appear to proceed from the same place.  What is the peculiarity of these sounds which penetrate so far on the keynote of nature? At last I got near to the brook in the meadow behind Hubbard's wood, but I could not tell if were further or nearer than that. When I got within half a dozen rods of the brook, it ceased, and I heard it no I suppose that I scared it.  As before I was further off than I thought, so now I was nearer than I thought.  It is not easy to understand how so small a creature can make so loud a sound by merely sucking in or throwing out water with pump-like lungs.

As yet no moon, but downy piles of cloud scattered here and there in the expectant sky.

Saw a blue flag blossom in the meadow while waiting for the stake-driver. 

It was a sound as of gulping water.

Where my path crosses the brook in the meadow there is a singularly sweet scent in the heavy air bathing the brakes, where the brakes grow, — the fragrance of the earth, as if the dew were a distillation of the fragrant essences of nature.

When I reach the road, the farmer going home from town invites me to ride in his high set wagon, not thinking why I walk, nor can I shortly explain. He remarks on the coolness of the weather.

The angelica is budded, a handsome luxuriant plant.

And now my senses are captivated again by a sweet fragrance as I enter the embowered willow causeway, and I know not if it be from a particular plant or all together, — sweet-scented vernal grass or sweet-briar.

Now the sun is fairly gone, I hear the dreaming frog, [toad?] and the whip-poor-will from some darker wood, — it is not far from eight,— and the cuckoo. The song sparrows sing quite briskly among the willows, as if it were spring again, and the blackbird's harsher note resounds over the meadows, and the veery's comes up from the wood.

Fishes are dimpling the surface of the river, seizing the insects which alight.

A solitary fisherman in his boat inhabits the scene.

As I rose the hill beyond the bridge, I found myself in a cool, fragrant, dewy, up-country, mountain morning air, a new region. When I had issued from the willows on to the bridge, it was like coming out of night into twilight, the river reflected so much light.)

The moon was now seen rising over Fair Haven and at the same time reflected in the river, pale and white like a silvery cloud, barred with a cloud, not promising how it will shine anon.

Now I meet an acquaintance coming from a remote field in his hay-rigging, with a jag of wood; who reins up to show me how large a woodchuck he has killed, which he found eating his clover. But now he must drive on, for behind comes a boy taking up the whole road with a huge roller drawn by a horse, which goes lumbering and bouncing along, getting out of the way of night,— while the sun has gone the other way, — and making such a noise as if it had the contents of a tinker's shop in its bowels, and rolls the whole road smooth like a newly sown grain-field.

In Conant's orchard I hear the faint cricket-like song of a sparrow saying its vespers, as if it were a link between the cricket and the bird. The robin sings now, though the moon shines silverly, and the veery jingles its trill.

I hear the fresh and refreshing sound of falling water, as I have heard it in New Hampshire. It is a sound we do not commonly hear.

I see that the whiteweed is in blossom, which, as I had not walked by day for some time, I had not seen before.

How moderate, deliberate, is Nature! How gradually the shades of night gather and deepen, giving man ample leisure to bid farewell to-day, conclude his day's affairs, and prepare for slumber!

The twilight seems out of proportion to the length of the day. Perchance it saves our eyes.

Now for some hours the farmers have been getting home. Since the alarm about mad dogs a couple of years ago there are comparatively few left to bark at the traveller and bay the moon. All nature is abandoned to me.

You feel yourself — your body, your legs, — more at night, for there is less beside to be distinctly known, and hence perhaps you think yourself more tired than you are.

I see indistinctly oxen asleep in the fields, silent in majestic slumber, like the sphinx, — statuesque, Egyptian, reclining. What solid rest! How their heads are supported! 

A sparrow or a cricket makes more noise.

From Conant's summit I hear as many as fifteen whip poor-wills — or whip-or-I-wills — at once, the succeeding cluck sounding strangely foreign, like a hewer at work elsewhere.

The moon is accumulating yellow light and triumphing over the clouds, but still the west is suffused here and there with a slight red tinge, marking the path of the day. Though inexperienced ones might call it night, it is not yet.

Dark, heavy clouds lie along the western horizon, exhibiting the forms of animals and men, while the moon is behind a cloud. Why do we detect these forms so readily? — whales or giants reclining, busts of heroes, Michael-Angelic.

There is the gallery of statuary, the picture gallery of man, — not a board upon an Italian's head, but these dark figures along the horizon, the board some Titan carries on his head. What firm and heavy outlines for such soft and light material!

How sweet and encouraging it is to hear the sound of some artificial music from the midst of woods or from the top of a hill at night, borne on the breeze from some distant farmhouse, — the human voice or a flute! That is a civilization one can endure, worth having. I could go about the world listening for the strains of music: Men use this gift but sparingly, methinks.

What should we think of a bird which had the gift of song but used it only once in a dozen years, like the tree which blossoms only once in a century?

Now the dorbug comes humming by, the first I have heard this year.

In three months it will be the Harvest Moon. I cannot easily believe it. Why not call this the Traveller's Moon?  It would be as true to call the last (the May) the Planter's Moon as it is to call September's the Harvest Moon, for the farmers use one about as little as the other.

Perhaps this is the Whip-poor-will's Moon.

The bullfrog now, which I have not heard before, this evening.

It is nearly nine.

They are much less common and their note more intermittent than that of the dreamers.

I scared up a bird on a low bush, perchance on its nest. It is rare that you start them at night from such places.

Peabody says that the nighthawk retires to rest about the time the whip-poor-will begins its song. The whip poor-will begins now at 7.30. I hear the nighthawk after 9 o'clock.

He says it flies low in the evening, but it also flies high, as it must needs do to make the booming sound.

I hear the lowing of cows occasionally, and the barking of dogs.

The pond by moonlight, which may make the object in a walk, suggests little to be said.

Where there was only one firefly in a dozen rods, I hastily ran to one which had crawled up to the top of a grass head and exhibited its light, and instantly another sailed in to it, showing its light also; but my presence made them extinguish their lights. The latter retreated, and the former crawled slowly down the stem.

It appeared to me that the first was a female who thus revealed her place to the male, who was also making known his neighborhood as he hovered about, both showing their lights that they might come together.  It was like a mistress who had climbed to the turrets of her castle and exhibited there a blazing taper for a signal, while her lover had displayed his light on the plain. If perchance she might have any lovers abroad.

Not much before 10 o'clock does the moonlight night begin.

When man is asleep and day fairly forgotten, then is the beauty of moonlight seen over lonely pastures where cattle are silently feeding.

Then let me walk in a diversified country, of hill and dale, with heavy woods one side, and copses and scattered trees and bushes enough to give me shadows.

Returning, a mist is on the river. The river is taken into the womb of Nature again.

Now is the clover month, but haying is not yet begun.

Evening. — Went to Nawshawtuct by North Branch. 

Overtaken by a slight shower. The same increased fragrance from the ground-sweet-fern, etc.-as in the night, and for the like reason probably.

The houstonias still blossom freshly, as I believe they continue to do all summer.

The fever-root in blossom; pictured in Bigelow's “Medical Botany."

Triosteum perfoliatum, near the top of Hill, under the wall, looks somewhat like a milkweed.

The Viburnum dentatum, very regularly toothed, just ready to blossom; sometimes called arrow-wood.

Nature seems not [to] have designed that man should be much abroad by night, and in the moon proportioned the light fitly. By the faintness and rareness of the light compared with that of the sun, she expresses her intention with regard to him.



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 14, 1851

I hear, while sitting by the wall, the sound of the stake-driver at a distance,. . . .  The pumper. See April 24, 1854 ("I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself.”); May 9, 1853 ("The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow."); May 20, 1856 ("See and hear a stake-driver in the swamp. It took one short pull at its pump and stopped."); October 26, 1858 ("[Minott] says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot.”)

And now my senses are captivated again by a sweet fragrance as I enter the embowered willow causeway, and I know not if it be from a particular plant or all together. See June 20, 1853 ("Walking amid the bushes and the ferns just after moonrise, I am refreshed with many sweet scents which I cannot trace to their source.")

Fishes are dimpling the surface of the river, seizing the insects which alight. See June 9, 1854 ("The fishes continue to leap by moonlight. A full moon."); June 2, 1860 ("Water-bugs dimple the surface now quite across the river, in the moonlight, for it is a full moon.")

As yet no moon, but downy piles of cloud scattered here and there in the expectant sky. See Basho: 

how many rising clouds

collapse and fall on

this moonlit mountain

The moon was now seen rising and at the same time reflected in the river, pale and white like a silvery cloud. See June 30, 1852 ("Moon nearly full; rose a little before sunset. . . . At first a mere white cloud,"); April 30, 1852 ("Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes.")  See also May 28, 1853 ("Last night in the dark [the lupines]were all a pale, whitish color like the moon by day — a mere dull luminousness, as if they reflected light absorbed by day. ")

The moon is accumulating yellow light and triumphing over the clouds. See June 1, 1852 ("You can never foretell the fate of the moon, -- whether she will prevail over or be obscured by the clouds half an hour hence. The traveller's sympathy with the moon makes the drama of the shifting clouds interesting.")

And now my senses 

are captivated again 

by a sweet fragrance.

How gradually

the shades of night deepen to

bid farewell to-day.

As yet no moon but

downy piles of scattered cloud

in expectant sky.

The moon reflected

in the river, pale and white,

a silvery cloud.