A Book of the Seasons: Basho's Commentary

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature . . . 

the season and life itself is prolonged.

  Henry Thoreau, April 7, 1853 

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

The frogs are now heard

leaping into the ditches

on your approach. 

HDT ~ March 30, 1858

An old pond

a frog jumps in —

sound of water.

~ Basho

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

Unaccountable

flowery fragrance– yet not

near any flower.

HDT ~ May 6, 1855

From which tree's bloom

it comes, I do not know —

this fragrance.

~ Basho

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

Viola pedata

along the woodland paths

in high land.

HDT ~ May 21, 1852

On mountain path

greeted by

a wild violet.

~ Basho

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

Wonder awe

innocence serenity –

lightning!

HDT ~  June 27, 1852

How admirable!

to see lightning and not think

life is fleeting.

~ Basho

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

Birds from out the fog,

I am older than last year –

the days are fewer.

HDT ~ July 7, 1852

This autumn

why am I aging so?

Bird in a cloud.

~ Basho

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

The little bees sleep

amid blossoms in the rain

and are not aroused.

HDT ~ August 4, 1852

A bee

staggers out

of the peony.

~Basho

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

Clearer than before 

each sound has a broad and deep 

relief of silence. 

HDT  ~ August 11, 1853

The silence –

the voice of the cicadas

penetrates the rocks.

~ Basho

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

This bright moonlight night

an owl heard from my chamber —

a loud, piercing scream.

HDT ~  September 23, 1855

autumn wind

through an open door –

a piercing cry

~ Basho

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

That far blue mountain

is but a faint blue cloud – a

mist that may vanish.

HDT ~ September 27, 1852

How intriguing! —

Mount Fuji is veiled all day

in the misty rain.

~ Basho (after Uedo)

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

One crow lingers

on a limb of the dead oak . . .

strong blustering wind.

HDT ~ October 6, 1860

On a bare branch 

a solitary crow –

autumn evening.

~ Basho 

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

The roar of the wind

on the wooded hilltops – each

tree resounds all night.

HDT ~ October 28, 1852

All night long

listening to autumn winds

wandering the mountain.

~ Basho 

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

      

Cold yellow sunlight

illumines the withered fields –

November sunset. 

HDT ~  November 9, 1858

Sick on a journey

my dreams wander

the withered fields.

~ Basho

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

The pine forest's edge –

that far line seen against the

winter horizon.

HDT ~ December 3, 1856  

 

Coolness

the clean lines

of the wild pine.

~ Basho

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

Winter solitude –

the new moon reflected from

the frozen snow crust.

HDT ~ December 8, 1850

Winter solitude –

in a world of one color

the sound of wind.

~Basho

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-Basho

The hickories are budded and show the red anthers.

May 21. 

May 11, 2020

(Avesong)

P. M. — Up Assabet to cress, with Sophia. 

Land on Island.

One of the most beautiful things to me now is the reddish-ash, and, higher, the silvery, canopies of half a dozen young white oak leaves over their catkins, — thousands of little tents pitched in the air for the May training of the flowers, so many little parasols to their tenderer flowers. 

Young white oaks and shrub oaks have a reddish look quite similar to their withered leaves in the winter. 

It is still windy weather, and while I hear the bobolink strain dying away in the distance through the maples, I can [ sic ] the falling apple blossoms which I do not see, as if they were his falling notes. 

Yet the water is quite still and smooth by the Hemlocks, and as the weather is warm, it is a soothing sight to see it covered with dust there over the Deep Eddy. 

Landed beyond the grape-vine bower and cleared out the spring of leaves and sticks and mud, and deepened it, making an outlet, and it soon ran clear and cold. 

The cress, which proves to be the rock cress, or herb of St. Barbara, is now luxuriant and in bloom in many places along the river, looking like mustard. 

Found the Ranunculus abortivus, apparently some time in blossom, in the woods opposite to the cress. Put it after the repens. 

There are, apparently, two kinds of thorns close together on Nawshawtuct,-one now and for some days in blossom, both bushes and the largest tree, – which are evidently varieties of the Cratægus coccinea, or scarlet-fruited thorn. The tree one is about eleven feet high by ten feet, and would be taken for an apple tree; is crowded full with white bloom very compact and handsome; the most showy of any native tree in these parts when in bloom. Its thorns are stout. 

But there is another kind, thin, wisp-shaped trees, not yet in bloom, with very long, slender, straight needle-shaped thorns and two or three stipules to each peduncle. As it has the usual petioles, is not the cockspur, but may be a variety of the first-named. 

The grass begins to be conspicuously reddened with sorrel. 

The white maple keys are nearly two inches long by a half-inch wide, in pairs, with waved inner edges like green moths ready to bear off their seeds. 

The red maple keys are not half so large now, and are a dull red, of a similar form. 

The hickories are budded and show the red anthers.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 21, 1853

Canopies of half a dozen young white oak leaves over their catkins. See May 17, 1853 ("The blossoms of the red oak hang down under its young leaves as under a canopy.")

The Deep Eddy. See March 29, 1853 ("A pleasant short voyage is that to the Leaning Hemlocks on the Assabet, just round the Island under Nawshawtuct Hill. The river here has in the course of ages gullied into the hill, at a curve, making a high and steep bank, on which a few hemlocks grow and overhang the deep, eddying basin.")

The grass begins to be conspicuously reddened with sorrel. See May 21, 1852 ("Sorrel in bloom, beginning. I am eager to taste a handful.") See also May 22, 1854 ("The sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health, — all these things make earth now a paradise. How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!")

The hickories are budded and show the red anthers. See May 14, 1855 ("Some hickories, just opening their leaves, make quite a show with the red inner sides of the bud-scales turned back."); May 17, 1853 ("How red are the scales of some hickory buds, now turned back!"); May 24, 1860 (“I notice the first shadows of hickories, - not dense and dark shade, but open-latticed, a network of sun and shadow on the north sides of the trees.”); May 26, 1857 ("The very sudden expansion of the great hickory buds, umbrella-wise."); May 29, 1857 (“Those great hickory buds, how much they contained! You see now the large reddish scales turned back at the base of the new twigs. Suddenly the buds burst, and those large pinnate leaves stretched forth in various directions.”)

To sit under the first apple tree in blossom is to take another step into summer.

May 21. 

Morning by river. 

May 21, 2019

A song sparrow's nest and eggs so placed in a bank that none could tread on it; bluish-white, speckled.

Also a robin's nest and eggs in the crotch of a maple.

Methinks birds that build amid the small branches of trees wait for the leaves to expand. [?]

The dew hangs on the grass like globules of quicksilver. Can I tell by it if it has rained in the night? I hear that it has.

P. M. — The black oak is just beginning to blossom.

The earlier apple trees are in bloom, and resound with the hum of bees of all sizes and other insects. To sit under the first apple tree in blossom is to take another step into summer.  The apple blossoms are so abundant and full, white tinged with red; a rich-scented Pomona fragrance, telling of heaps of apples in the autumn, perfectly innocent, wholesome, and delicious. 

On hillsides cut off two years ago, the red oaks now contrast at a little distance with the yellowish-green birches. The latter are covered with green lice, which cover me. 

The catbird sings like a robin sometimes, sometimes like a blackbird's sprayey warble. There is more of squeak or mew, and also of clear whistle, than in the thrasher's note. 

Nemopanthes in bloom; leaves three quarters of an inch. 

Sand cherry also, fully. 

Young blueberries every where in bloom, and Viola pedata along the woodland paths, in high land. 

Sorrel in bloom, beginning. I am eager to taste a handful.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 21, 1852


A song sparrow's nest and eggs so placed in a bank that none could tread on it; bluish-white, speckled.See  May 6, 1860 ("See a song sparrow’s nest with four eggs in the side of a bank, or rather ditch. I commonly find the earliest ones in such sheltered and concealed places"); May 12, 1857 ("I hear of, and also find, a ground-bird's (song sparrow's) nest with five eggs.");   May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs, made partly of usnea; two stories, i.e. upon an old nest, elevated one foot above the water; eggs with very dark blotches.")

Also a robin's nest and eggs in the crotch of a maple. See May 21, 1856 ("A robin’s nest without mud, on a young white oak in woods, with three eggs.") See also  May 6. 1855 (''A robin’s nest with two eggs, betrayed by peeping."); May 13, 1853 ("A robin's nest, with young, on the causeway"); May 19, 1854 ("The robin's nest and eggs are the earliest I see.")

The dew hangs on the grass like globules of quicksilver. May 11, 1852 ("Dews come with the grass. There is, I find on examining, a small, clear drop at the end of each blade, quite at the top on one side."); May 13, 1860: ("Each dewdrop is a delicate crystalline sphere trembling at the tip of a fresh green grass-blade.")

The earlier apple trees are in bloom. See note to May 25 , 1852 ("It is blossom week with the apples.")

Viola pedata along the woodland paths, in high land.  See  October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring. . . The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression.") See also Basho:

on mountain path

greeted by

a wild violet

The propagation of birches by seed blown in winter.

May 21. 

May 21, 2018

P. M. – To Boulder Field. 

Horse-chestnut in bloom. 

Aetoea  spicata var. rubra will bloom, apparently, in four or five days. It is now fifteen inches high. 

Lilac in bloom. 

Pratt shows me what I take to be Genista tinctoria (not budded) from the Boulder Field. It has leafed; when? 

Also a ranunculus from his land, – which has been out how long?— which is very near to R. repens, but has small flowers, petals less than the calyx, and leaves, methinks, more divided, but I did not see it open. It may be a variety of repens. 

His daughter has found in bloom: huckleberry on the 19th; Viola pubescens, 16th; Geranium maculatum, 18th. 

I notice that the old indigo-bird path behind Pratt's is for some distance distinctly defined by young birches, three or four feet high, which are now clothed with tender leaves before the young oaks, etc., on each side. They are especially thick in the ruts, while there are but few here and there in the sprout-land generally. I suspect that the seed was blown and lodged there in the winter. 

E. Hoar saw Silene Pennsylvanica out in Lincoln to day, in a warm cleft of a rock; also Cerasus pumila between here and Newton.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 21, 1858

Birches thick in the ruts, the seed was blown and lodged there in the winter. See March 2, 1856 ("Walking up the river by Prichard's, was surprised to see, on the snow over the river, a great many seeds and scales of birches, . . . A great proportion of the seed that was carried to a distance lodged in the hollow over the river, and when the river breaks up will be carried far away, to distant shores and meadows. "); May 12, 1858 (“I notice that birches near meadows,. . . grow in more or less parallel lines a foot or two apart, parallel with the shore, apparently the seed having been dropped there either by a freshet or else lodged in the parallel waving hollows of the snow.”)

A light and graceful tree leaning over the Assabet

dog-tooth violet
May 21, 2017

May 21. 

Rains still, more or less, all day. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; this weather is good for cuttings and transplanted trees. 

P. M. — To Hill. 

Sassafras (fertile) will apparently bloom to-morrow. These, too, — the young trees, — have been killed the past winter, like the fever-bush. 

There is, leaning over the Assabet at the Grape Bower, an amelanchier variety Botryapium about five inches in diameter and some twenty-eight feet long, a light and graceful tree. The leaves of this are, as usual, nearly smooth and quite brown, of a delicate tint (purplish?). 

At the spring just beyond, is another amelanchier, and other small ones are not uncommon, differing from the last, not in the form of its petals and leaves, but the latter are green, or very slightly streaked with purplish. It seems to be a common variety of the variety Botryapium and quite downy, though not so downy as those of the oblongifolia. The bark of these trees is much like that of a maple. 

I find checkerberries still fresh and abundant. Last year was a remarkable one for them. They lurk under the low leaves, scarcely to be detected, often, as you are standing up, almost below the level of the ground, dark-scarlet berries, some of them half an inch in diameter, broad pear-shaped, of a pale or hoary pink color beneath. The peduncle curves downward between two leaves. There they lurk under the glossy, dark-green, brown-spotted leaves, close to the ground. They make a very handsome nosegay.

I saw yesterday a parrot exceedingly frightened in its cage at a window. It rushed to the bars and struggled to get out. A piece of board had been thrown from the window above to the ground, which probably the parrot's instinct had mistaken for a hawk. Their eyes are very open to danger from above. 

The staminate buds of the black spruce are quite a bright red.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 21, 1857

It seems to be a common variety of the variety Botryapium and quite downy, though not so downy as those of the oblongifolia. See  May 9, 1852 ("The first shad-bush, Juneberry, or service-berry (Amclanchier canadensis), in blossom.").May 12, 1855 ("I now begin to distinguish where at a distance the Amelanchier Botryapium, with its white against the russet, is waving in the wind."); May 13, 1855 ("Saw an amelanchier with downy leaf (apparently oblongifolia) on the southeast edge of Yellow Birch Swamp, about eighteen feet high and five or six inches in diameter, —a clump of them about as big as an apple tree).

I find checkerberries still fresh and abundant. See March 4, 1854 (“The checkerberries are revealed, — somewhat shrivelled many of them.”);  March 10, 1855 ("Those reddening leaves, as the checkerberry, lambkill, etc., etc., which at the beginning of winter were greenish, are now a deeper red, when the snow goes off.”); April 1, 1857 (“Checkerberries very fair and abundant now near Muhlenbergii Brook”); May 15, 1856 (“Checker-berries very abundant on south side of Pine Hill, by pitch pine wood. Now is probably best time to gather them.”); -- see also June 12, 1857 (“Of the woods of the Cape which I walked through . . . are dry pine and oak woods, extensive but quite low, commonly, with an abundance of bear-berry and checkerberry in the more open parts, the latter forming an almost uninterrupted bed for great distances.”);  July 16, 1856 (“Checkerberry, a day or two”); August 25, 1851 (Checkerberry in bloom.”); October 8, 1856 (“Find many checker-berries on Smith's hill beyond the chestnut grove, which appear to be just ripe, a lighter pink color, with two little white checks on the stem side, the marks of what I suppose are the two outer calyx-leaves.”); October 15, 1856 (“An abundance of checkerberries by the hemlock at V. Muhlenbergii Brook. A remarkable year for berries.”); November 16, 1852 ("The partridge-berry leaves checker the ground on the side of moist hillsides in the woods. Are they not properly called checker-berries?");  November 19, 1850 ("Now that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen, it begins to appear what is evergreen the partridge-berry and checkerberry, and winter-green leaves even, are more conspicuous.”); December 23, 1855 (“At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, . . . checkerberry, wintergreen, . . .”).

Note: “checkerberry" is another name for American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). See Checkerberry cum Wintergreen. and GoBotany.  What HDT calls  “wintergreen” is Chimaphila umbellata, a/k/a pipsissewa, See July 3, 1852 ("The Chimaphila umbellata, wintergreen, must have been in blossom some time.”);  November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”); May 21, 1860 ("Wintergreen had started the 18th at least")

The staminate buds of the black spruce are quite a bright red. See May 22, 1856 (“The red and cream-colored cone-shaped staminate buds of the black spruce will apparently shed pollen in one to three days? They are nearly half an inch long.”);

A Book of the Seasons: May 21 (tanager and grosbeak, tender green birch leaves, apple blossoms).

The year is but a succession of days,

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

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

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

May 21

Viola pedata 

along the woodland paths 

in high land.

May 21, 1852

The bobolink strain

dies away in the distance --

apple blossoms fall.

May 21, 1853

Is not summer come

when we see morning fog and

 cobwebs on the grass?

 May 21 , 1854

Surprising red bird — 

A tanager against the 

darkening green leaves.

May 21, 1854

Their leaves like flowers

the birches by the railroad

flash yellow on me.

May 21, 1860

May 21.  2014, 2018

 Very cold to-day; cold weather, indeed, from the 20th to 23d inclusive. Sit by fires, and sometimes wear a greatcoat and expect frosts. May 21, 1855

Cold, at 11 A.M. 50°; and sit by a fire. At 12 it begins to rain . . . 

All vegetation is refreshed by the rain. The grass appears to stand perfectly erect and on tiptoe, several inches higher, all at once in every field, the fresh green prevailing over the brown ground in every field. The color of the new leaves is surprising  May 21, 1860

The grass begins to be conspicuously reddened with sorrel. May 21, 1853

Sorrel in bloom, beginning. I am eager to taste a handful. May 21, 1852

The dew hangs on the grass like globules of quicksilver. May  21, 1852

A slight fog in morning.  Cobwebs on grass, the first I have noticed.  This is one of the late phenomena of spring . . . When these begin to be seen, then is not summer come? May 21, 1854

To sit under the first apple tree in blossom is to take another step into summer. May 21, 1852

The earlier apple trees are in bloom, and resound with the hum of bees of all sizes and other insects. May 21, 1852

Noticed the shadows of apple trees yesterday. May 21, 1860

The black oak is just beginning to blossom. May 21, 1852

On hillsides cut off two years ago, the red oaks now contrast at a little distance with the yellowish-green birches. The latter are covered with green lice, which cover me.  May 21, 1852

I notice that the old indigo-bird path behind Pratt's is for some distance distinctly defined by young birches, three or four feet high, which are now clothed with tender leaves before the young oaks, etc., on each side. May 21, 1855

Young white oaks and shrub oaks have a reddish look quite similar to their withered leaves in the winter. May 21, 1853

The staminate buds of the black spruce are quite a bright red. May 21, 1857

The hickories are budded and show the red anthers. May 21, 1853 

Some button bush begins to leaf. May 21, 1855

The larger Populus grandidentata here are pretty well leaved out and may be put with the young ones. May 21, 1854

The white maple keys are nearly two inches long by a half-inch wide, in pairs, with waved inner edges like green moths ready to bear off their seeds. May 21, 1853

The red maple keys are not half so large now, and are a dull red, of a similar form. May 21, 1853

Saw two splendid rose-breasted grosbeaks with females in the young wood in Emerson’s lot. What strong colored fellows, black, white, and fiery rose-red breasts! Strong-natured, too, with their stout bills. A clear, sweet singer, like a tanager but hoarse somewhat, and not shy. May 21, 1856

A tanager, — the surprising red bird, — against the darkening green leaves. May 21, 1854

The catbird sings like a robin sometimes, sometimes like a blackbird's sprayey warble. May 21, 1852

Is that plump blue-backed, rufous rumped swallow the cliff swallow, flying with barn swallows, etc., over the river? May 21, 1855

 A song sparrow's nest and eggs so placed in a bank that none could tread on it; bluish-white, speckled. May 21, 1852

A robin's nest and eggs in the crotch of a maple. May 21, 1852

A robin’s nest without mud, on a young white oak in woods, with three eggs. May 21, 1856

I find checkerberries still fresh and abundant. May 21, 1857

The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already. May 21, 1856

Myosotis laxa by Turnpike, near Hosmer Spring , may have been out several days; two or three at least . May 21, 1856

Bluets whiten the fields, and violets are now perhaps in prime.
May 21, 1855

Viola pedata along the woodland paths, in high land. May 21, 1852

Viola palmata [wood violet] pretty common, apparently two or three days. May 21, 1855

Hear the squeak of a nighthawk. May 21, 1854

It is still windy weather, and while I hear the bobolink strain dying away in the distance through the maples, I can [imagine] the falling apple blossoms which I do not see, as if they were his falling notes.. May 21, 1853

The birches by the railroad, as I am whirled by them in the cars, flash upon me yellow as gamboge, their leaves more like flowers than foliage. May 21, 1860

Yet the water is quite still and smooth by the Hemlocks, and as the weather is warm, it is a soothing sight to see it covered with dust there over the Deep Eddy. May 21, 1853

The finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds. May 21, 1854

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Birds of May

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Robins in Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager

A Book of the Seasons,    by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Wood Sorrel (Oxalis)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Solomon's Seal

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Mouse-ear forget-me-not

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Leaf-Out

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Apple Blossom Time

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Maple Keys

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

*****

May 12, 1858 ("The white maple keys have not fallen.")

 May 15, 1856 (“Checker-berries very abundant on south side of Pine Hill, by pitch pine wood. Now is probably best time to gather them.”)

 May 17, 1854 ("Red maple keys are seen at a distance against the tender green of birches and other trees.")

May 20, 1853 ("Fresh checkerberry shoots now.")

May 20, 1858 ("See tanagers, male and female, in the top of a pine, one red, other yellow, from below. We have got to these high colors among birds")

May 22, 1852 ("Polygonatum pubescens at rock.")

May 22, 1853 ("Hear the hoarse note of the tanager and the sweet pe-a-wai,")

May 22, 1853 ("Sorrel reddens the fields.")

May 22, 1854 (". The grass so short and fresh, the tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape, the birds now most musical, the sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health. — all these things make earth now a paradise. How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!")

May 22, 1856 (“The red and cream-colored cone-shaped staminate buds of the black spruce will apparently shed pollen in one to three days? They are nearly half an inch long.”);

May 23, 1853  ("At Loring's Wood heard and saw a tanager. That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky!")

May 24, 1855 ("Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. At first think it a tanager, but soon I perceive its more clear and instrumental — should say whistle, if one could whistle like a flute; a noble singer, reminding me also of a robin; clear, loud and flute-like.")

May 24, 1860  (“I notice the first shadows of hickories, - not dense and dark shade, but open-latticed, a network of sun and shadow on the north sides of the trees.”)

May 28, 1858 ("See already one or two (?) white maple keys on the water")

May 21, 2023

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

on mountain path

greeted by

a wild violet

~ Basho

May 20 <<<<< May 21  >>>>>  May 22

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 21

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/HDT21May