Suddenly comes the gust,

June 19.

June 19, 2020

A thunder-shower in the north. 

Will it strike us? How impressive this artillery of the heavens! It rises higher and higher. At length the thunder seems to roll quite across the sky and all round the horizon, even where there are no clouds, and I row homeward in haste. 

The top of the swamp white oak in Merrick's pasture with its rich shade of green seems incrusted with light. 

Now by magic the skirts of the cloud are gathered about us, and it shoots forward over our head, and the rain comes at a time and place which baffles all our calculations. 

Suddenly comes the gust, and the big drops slanting from the north, and the birds fly as if rudderless, and the trees bow and are wrenched. It rains against the windows like hail and is blown over the roofs like steam or smoke. It runs down the large elm at Holbrook's and shatters the house near by. 

Soon silver puddles shine in the streets. This the first rain of consequence for at least three weeks.

June 19, 2014

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1854

Suddenly comes the gust. See June 16, 1860 ("Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.”); June 29, 1860 (“[T]here is a sudden burst from it with a remarkably strong, gusty wind, and the rain for fifteen minutes falls in a blinding deluge. The roof of the depot shed is taken off. . . I think I never saw it rain so hard.”) 

Big drops slanting from the north, and the birds fly as if rudderless See October 27, 1851("The strong northwest wind blows the damp snow along almost horizontally. The birds fly about as if seeking shelter. ")

June 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 19

The rain comes at a 

time and place that baffles all

our calculations.

Suddenly the gust

big drops slanting from the north –

birds fly rudderless.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Suddenly comes the gust. 

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540619

All is moist and dissolving.

January 13.

Still warm and thawing, springlike; no freezing in the night, though high winds. 

I saw yesterday my snowshoe tracks quite distinct, though made January 2d. Though they pressed the snow down four or five inches, they consolidated it, and it now endures and is two or three inches above the general level there, and more white. 

The landscape is now patches of bare ground and snow; much running water with the sun reflected from it. Lately all was clean, dry, and tight. Now, though clear and bright, all is moist and dissolving. 

Walden is covered with puddles, in which you see a dim reflection of the trees and hills on the grayish or light-colored snow-ice.

In the deep hollow this side of Britton's Camp, I hear a singular buzzing sound from the ground, exactly like that of a large fly or bee in a spider's web. I kneel down, and with pains trace it to a small bare spot as big as my hand, amid the snow, and searched there amid the grass stubble for several minutes, putting the grass aside with my fingers, till, when nearest to the spot, not knowing but I might be stung, I use a stick. The sound is incessant, like that of a large fly in agony, but I find neither prey nor oppressor. 

At length I change the tone with my stick, and so trace it to a few spires of dead grass standing in the melted snow water. It is a sound issuing from the earth. 

There is no bubble in the water. Perhaps it is air confined under the frozen ground, now expanded by the thaw, and escaping upward through the water by a hollow grass stem.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 13, 1854

Walden is covered with puddles, in which you see a dim reflection of the trees and hills on the grayish or light-colored snow-ice. See  January 8, 1860 ("The sloshy edges of the puddles are the frames of so many wave-shaped mirrors in which the leather-colored oak leaves, and the dark-green pines and their stems, on the hillside, are reflected. "); February 7, 1857 (“The water on the ice is for the most part several inches deep, and trees reflected in it appear as when seen through a mist or smoke, apparently owing to the color of the ice.”); February 15, 1859 ("We walk through almost invisible puddles on the river and meadows, in which we see the trees, etc., reflected. ")

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky

January 13.  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 13

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 © 2009-2022

Down the railroad. Cloudy but springlike.

March 9.

A warm spring rain in the night. 

3 P.M. - Down the railroad. 

Cloudy but springlike. The earth is now half bare. Yesterday all was tight as a stricture on my breast; to-day all is loosened. It is a different element from what it was. Though cloudy, the air excites me. When the frost comes out of the ground, there is a corresponding thawing of the man. 


 These March winds, which make the woods roar and fill the world with life and bustle, appear to wake up the trees out of their winter sleep and excite the sap to flow. I have no doubt they serve some such use, as well as to hasten the evaporation of the snow and water. I hear and see bluebirds, come with the warm wind. I am cheered by the sound of running water now down the wooden troughs on each side the cut. Already these puddles on the railroad, relflecting pinewoods, remind me of summer lakes. Again it rains, and I turn about. The sound of water falling on rocks and of air falling on trees are very much alike. The pond is covered with puddles. I see one farmer trimming his tree.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 9, 1852

These March winds, which make the woods roar and fill the world with life and bustle, appear to wake up the trees out of their winter sleep and excite the sap to flow. See March 9, 1860 ("You incline to walk now along the south side of hills which will shelter you from the blustering northwest and north winds"); See also March 6, 1855 ("Still stronger wind, shaking the house, and rather cool. This the third day of wind."); March 18, 1854 ("The white caps of the waves on the flooded meadow, seen from the window, are a rare and exciting spectacle");