Meditations under a rock in a shower.

May 30. 

P. M. — To chestnut oaks. 

May 30, 2017

I think that there are many chestnut-sided warblers this season. They are pretty tame. One sits within six feet of me, though not still. He is much painted up. 

Blue-stemmed goldenrod is already a foot high. 

I see the geranium and two-leaved Solomon's-seal out, the last abundant. The red pyrus by the path, not yet, but probably the same elsewhere. 

The young black oak leafets are dark red or reddish, thick and downy; the scarlet oak also are somewhat reddish, thick and downy, or thin and green and little downy, like red oak, but rather more deeply cut; the red oak broad, thin, green and not downy; the white pink-red. 

Was it not a whip-poor-will I scared up at the base of a bush in the woods to-day, that went off with a clumsy flight? 

By the path near the northeast shore of Flint's Pond, just before reaching the wall by the brook, I see what I take to be an uncommonly large Uvularia sessilifolia flower, but, looking again, am surprised to find it the Uvularia perfoliata, which I have not found hereabouts before. It is a taller and much more erect plant than the other, with a larger flower, methinks. It is considerably past its prime and probably began with the other. 

Chestnut oak not yet in bloom, though the black and scarlet are well out in ordinary places. Its young leaves have a reddish-brown tinge. All the large trees are cut down. 

The white oak is not out. 

It is remarkable that many beach and chestnut oak leaves, which so recently expanded, have already attained their full size! How they launch themselves forth to the light! How suddenly Nature spreads her umbrellas! How little delay in expanding leaves! They seem to expand before our eyes, like the wings of moths just fallen from the cocoon. 

Buttercups thickly spot the churchyard. 

Perhaps I could write meditations under a rock in a shower. 

When first I had sheltered myself under the rock, I began at once to look out on the pond with new eyes, as from my house. I was at Lee's Cliff as I had never been there before, had taken up my residence there, as it were. Ordinarily we make haste away from all opportunities to be where we have instinctively endeavored to get. 

When the storm was over where I was, and only a few thin drops were falling around me, I plainly saw the rear of the rain withdrawing over the Lincoln woods south of the pond, and, above all, heard the grand rushing sound made by the rain falling on the freshly green forest, a very different sound when thus heard at a distance from what it is when we are in the midst of it. In the latter case we are soothed by a gentle pattering and do not suspect the noise which a rain storm makes. 

This Cliff thus became my house. I inhabited it. When, at length, it cleared up, it was unexpectedly early and light, and even the sun came out and shone warm on my back as I went home. Large puddles occupied the cart-paths and rose above the grass in the fields. 

In the midst of the shower, though it was not raining very hard, a black and white creeper came and in spected the limbs of a tree before my rock, in his usual zigzag, prying way, head downward often, and when it thundered loudest, heeded it not. Birds appear to be but little incommoded by the rain. Yet they do not often sing in it. 

The blue sky is never more celestial to our eyes than when it is first seen here and there between the clouds at the end of a storm, — a sign of speedy fair weather. I saw clear blue patches for twenty minutes or more in the southwest before I could leave my covert, for still I saw successive fine showers falling between me and the thick glaucous white pine beneath.

I think that such a projection as this, or a cave, is the only effectual protection that nature affords us against the storm. 

I sang "Tom Bowling" there in the midst of the rain, and the dampness seemed to be favorable to my voice. There was a slight rainbow on my way home. 

Met Conant riding home, who had been caught in town and detained, though he had an umbrella. 

Already a spider or other insect had drawn together the just expanded leaves of a hickory before my door with its web within them, making a close tent. This twig extended under my rocky roof and was quite dry. 

Probably a portion of the Cliff, being undermined by rain, had anciently fallen out and left this rocky roof above.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1857

Buttercups thickly spot the churchyard. See May 27, 1853 ("The buttercups in the church-yard and on some hillsides are now looking more glossy and bright than ever after the rain.”); June 2, 1852 (“Buttercups now spot the churchyard.”)

Perhaps I could write meditations under a rock in a shower. See August 13, 1853 (“Could I not write meditations under a bridge at midsummer?”)

The blue sky is never more celestial to our eyes than when it is first seen here and there between the clouds at the end of a storm. See January 7, 1851 ("The life, the joy, that is in blue sky after a storm!")

I began at once to look out on the pond with new eyes, as from my house. I was at Lee's Cliff as I had never been there before . . .See June 13, 1854 ("When I have stayed out thus late many miles from home, and have heard a cricket beginning to chirp louder near me in the grass I have felt that I was not far from home after all, -- began to be weaned from my village home."); May 23, 1853 ("[A] certain lateeness ... releases me from the obligation to return in any particular season. I have passed the Rubicon of staying out. ...I will wander further from what I have called my home - to the home which is forever inviting me. In such an hour the freedom of the woods is offered me")

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

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

Seeking shelter under the Cliffs – how near all men come to doing nothing!

May 29.

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff. 

A fine-grained air, June-like, after a cloudy, rain- threatening or rainy morning. Sufficient with a still, clear air in which the hum of insects is heard, and the sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. The grass is not yet dry. The birds sing more lively than ever now after the rain, though it is only 2 p. m. 

On the Corner road I overtake a short, thick-set young man dressed in thick blue clothes, with a large basket of scions, etc., on his arm, who has just come from Newton in the cars and is going to graft for Lafayette Garfield, thus late. He does not think much of the Baldwin, and still less of the Porter. The last is too sour! and, above all, does not bear well! ! Has set more scions of Williams' Favorite than of any other, and thinks much of Seaver's apple, a sweeting, etc. Verily, it is all de gustibus. Having occasion to speak of his father, who had been unfortunate, he said, " We boys (his sons) clubbed together and bought the old fellow a farm" just before he died. He had a very broad, round face, and short front teeth half buried in the gums, for he exposed the whole of his gums when he opened his mouth. 

I think I have noticed that coarse-natured farmers' boys, etc., have not a sufficiently fine and delicate taste to appreciate a high-flavored apple. It is commonly too acid for them, and they prefer some tame, sweet thing, fit only for baking, as a pumpkin sweeting. 

Men derive very various nutriment from the same nature, their common habitat, like plants. Some derive, as it were directly from the soil, a brawny body, and their cheeks bulge out like pumpkin sweetings. They seem more thoroughly naturalized here, and the elements are kinder to them. They have more of the wind and rain and meadow muck in their composition. They flourish in the swampy soil like vegetables and do not fear toothache or neuralgia. Some grow like a pumpkin pine, at least. They fish and hunt and get the meadow-hay. Compared with ordinary men, they grow like a Rohan potato beside a Lady's-Finger. Their system has great power of assimilation. The soil is native to them. As different elements go to the composition of two human bodies as the thoughts that occupy their brains are different. How much more readily one nature assimilates to beef and potatoes and makes itself a brawny body of them, than another! 

We sat and talked a spell at the Corner Spring. 

What is the new warbler I see and hear frequently now, with apparently a black head, white side-head, brown back, forked tail, and light legs? 

The sun came out an hour or more ago, rapidly drying the foliage, and for the first time this year I noticed the little shades produced by the foliage which had expanded in the rain, and long narrow dark lines of shade along the hedges or willow-rows. It was like the first bright flashings of an eye from under dark eyelashes after shedding warm tears. 

Now I see a great dark low-arching cloud in the northwest already dropping rain there and steadily sweeping southeast, as I go over the first Conantum Hill from the spring. But I trust that its southwest end will drift too far north to strike me. The rest of the sky is quite serene, sprinkled here and there with bright downy, glowing summer clouds. The grass was not yet dried before this angry summer-shower cloud appeared. 

I go on, uncertain whether it is broad or thin and whether its heel will strike me or not. How universal that strawberry-like fragrance of the fir-balsam cone and wilted twig! My meadow fragrance (also perceived on hillsides) reminds me of it. Methinks that the fragrance of the strawberry may stand for a large class of odors, as the terebinthine odors of firs and arbor-vitae and cedar (as the harp stands for music). There is a certain sting to it, as to them. 

Black shrub oaks well out. 

Oxalis stricta. 

The Veronica serpyllifolia, now erect, is commonly found in moist depressions or hollows in the pastures, where perchance a rock has formerly been taken out and the grass is somewhat thicker and deeper green; also in the grassy ruts of old, rarely used cart-paths.

Red and black oaks are out at Lee's Cliff, well out, and already there are crimson spots on the red oak leaves. Also the fine red mammilla galls stud the black cherry leaves. Galls begin with the very unfolding of the leaves. 

Solomon’s Seal
5/20/2017
(avesong)

The Polygonatum pubescens out there. 

Some, nay most, Turritis stricta quite out of bloom. 

Fair Haven Lake now, at 4.30 p. m., is perfectly smooth, reflecting the darker and glowing June clouds as it has not before. Fishes incessantly dimple it here and there, and I see afar, approaching steadily but diagonally toward the shore of the island, some creature on its surface, maybe a snake, — but my glass shows it to be a muskrat, leaving two long harrow-like ripples behind. Soon after, I see another, quite across the pond on the Baker Farm side, and even distinguish that to be a muskrat. The fishes, methinks, are busily breeding now. These things I see as I sit on the top of Lee's Cliff, looking into the light and dark eye of the lake. 

The heel of that summer-shower cloud, seen through the trees in the west, has extended further south and looks more threatening than ever. As I stand on the rocks, examining the blossoms of some forward black oaks which close overhang it, I think I hear the sound of flies against my hat. No, it is scattered raindrops, though the sky is perfectly clear above me, and the cloud from which they come is yet far on one side. 

I see through the tree-tops the thin vanguard of the storm scaling the celestial ramparts, like eager light infantry, or cavalry with spears advanced. But from the west a great, still, ash-colored cloud comes on. The drops fall thicker, and I seek a shelter under the Cliffs. 

I stand under a large projecting portion of the Cliff, where there is ample space above and around, and I can move about as perfectly protected as under a shed. To be sure, fragments of rock look as if they would fall, but I see no marks of recent ruin about me. 

Soon I hear the low all-pervading hum of an approaching hummingbird circling above the rock, which afterward I mistake several times for the gruff voices of men approaching, unlike as these sounds are in some respects, and I perceive the resemblance even when I know better. Now I am sure it is a hummingbird, and now that it is two farmers approaching. But presently the hum becomes more sharp and thrilling, and the little fellow suddenly perches on an ash twig within a rod of me, and plumes himself while the rain is fairly beginning. He is quite out of proportion to the size of his perch. It does not acknowledge his weight. 

I sit at my ease and look out from under my lichen-clad rocky roof, half-way up the Cliff, under freshly leafing ash and hickory trees on to the pond, while the rain is falling faster and faster, and I am rather glad of the rain, which affords me this experience. The rain has compelled me to find the cosiest and most homelike part of all the Cliff. 

The surface of the pond, though the rain dimples it all alike and I perceive no wind, is still divided into irregular darker and lighter spaces, with distinct boundaries, as it were watered all over. Even now that it rains very hard and the surface is all darkened, the boundaries of those spaces are not quite obliterated. The countless drops seem to spring again from its surface like stalagmites. 

A mosquito, sole living inhabitant of this antrum, settles on my hand. I find here sheltered with me a sweet-briar growing in a cleft of the rock above my head, where perhaps some bird or squirrel planted it. Mulleins beneath. Galium Aparine, just begun to bloom, growing next the rock; and, in the earth-filled clefts, columbines, some of whose cornucopias strew the ground. Ranunculus bulbosus in bloom; saxifrage; and various ferns, as spleenwort, etc. Some of these plants are never rained on. I perceive the buttery-like scent of barberry bloom from over the rock, and now and for some days the bunches of effete white ash anthers strew the ground. 

It lights up a little, and the drops fall thinly again, and the birds begin to sing, but now I see a new shower coming up from the southwest, and the wind seems to have changed somewhat. Already I had heard the low mutterings of its thunder — for this is a thunder- shower — in the midst of the last. It seems to have shifted its quarters merely to attack me on a more exposed side of my castle. Two foes appear where I had expected none. But who can calculate the tactics of the storm? 

It is a first regular summer thunder-shower, preceded by a rush of wind, and I begin to doubt if my quarters will prove a sufficient shelter. I am fairly besieged and know not when I shall escape. I hear the still roar of the rushing storm at a distance, though no trees are seen to wave. 

And now the forked flashes descending to the earth succeed rapidly to the hollow roars above, and down comes the deluging rain. I hear the alarmed notes of birds flying to a shelter. The air at length is cool and chilly, the atmosphere is darkened, and I have forgotten the smooth pond and its reflections. The rock feels cold to my body, as if it were a different season of the year. 

I almost repent of having lingered here; think how far I should have got if I had started homeward. But then what a condition I should have been in! Who knows but the lightning will strike this cliff and topple the rocks down on me? The crashing thunder sounds like the overhauling of lumber on heaven's loft. 

And now, at last, after an hour of steady confinement, the clouds grow thin again, and the birds begin to sing. They make haste to conclude the day with their regular evening songs (before the rain is fairly over) according to the program. 

The pepe on some pine tree top was heard almost in the midst of the storm. One or two bullfrogs trump. They care not how wet it is. 

Again I hear the still rushing, all-pervading roar of the withdrawing storm, when it is at least half a mile off, wholly beyond the pond, though no trees are seen to wave. It is simply the sound of the countless drops falling on the leaves and the ground. You were not aware what a sound the rain made. 

Several times I attempt to leave my shelter, but return to it. My first stepping abroad seems but a signal for the rain to commence again. Not till after an hour and a half do I escape. After all, my feet and legs are drenched by the wet grass.

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. 

I see and hear the cuckoo. The Salix nigra, apparently several days, at Corner Bridge. Many of the black spruce have the terminal twigs dead. They are a slow-growing tree. 

It is encouraging to see thrifty-growing white pines by their side, which have added three feet to their height the last year. 

With all this opportunity, this comedy and tragedy, how near all men come to doing nothing! 

It is strange that they did not make us more intense and emphatic, that they do not goad us into some action. Generally, with all our desires and restlessness, we are no more likely to embark in any enterprise than a tree is to walk to a more favorable locality. 

The seaboard swarms with adventurous and rowdy fellows, but how unaccountably they train and are held in check! They are as likely to be policemen as anything. It exhausts their wits and energy merely to get their living, and they can do no more. 

The Americans are very busy and adventurous sailors, but all in somebody's employ, — as hired men. I have not heard of one setting out in his own bark, if only to run down our own coast on a voyage of adventure or observation, on his own account. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1857

The shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. See June 4, 1855 ("dark shadows on field and wood are the more remarkable by contrast with the light yellow-green foliage now, and when they rest on evergreens they are doubly dark, like dark rings about the eyes of June."); June 9. 1856 ("Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath.”); June 11, 1856 (“I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground. . . . It reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer.”). See also .note to June 6, 1855 ("The dark eye and shade of June”).and  To the Maiden in the East from The Dial (October 1842) and A Week ("The lightning's silent gleam, / Startling my drowsy dream,/ Seemed like the flash / Under thy dark eyelash.")

Looking into the light and dark eye of the lake. See June 26, 1852 ("The smooth reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the ice is just melted. Those liquid eyes of nature, blue or black or even hazel, deep or shallow, clear or turbid; green next the shore, the color of their iris.”)
The Veronica serpyllifolia, now erect, is commonly found in moist depressions ... See May 12, 1857 ("Veronica serpyllifolia is abundantly out at Corner Spring”); May 17, 1856 ("Veronica serpylléfolia abundant now on banks, erected.”)

Ranunculus bulbosus in bloom. See May 29, 1859 ("The Ranunculus bulbosus are apparently in prime.")

Oxalis stricta.  May 26, 1852 ("Walking home from surveying, the fields are just beginning to be reddened with sorrel.”); May 22, 1854 (" . . the sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health, — all these things make earth now a paradise.”)

The Polygonatum pubescens out there. See May 25, 1852 (“Polygonatum pubescens ready to bloom.”); May 22, 1856 (“Polygonatum pubescens at rock.”); May 21, 1856 ("The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already.”);  May 12, 1855 ("One flower of the Polygonatum pubescens open there [under Lee’s Cliff]; probably may shed pollen to-morrow.”).

Soon I hear the low all-pervading hum of an approaching hummingbird circling above the rock . . See May 17, 1856 ("There, along with me in the deep, wild swamp . . . Its hum was heard afar at first, like that of a large bee, bringing a larger summer.”)

It is a first regular summer thunder-shower, preceded by a rush of wind . . . See May 10, 1857 (" a sudden shower with some thunder and lightning; the first.")

I sit at my ease

under my lichen-clad roof 

thankful for the rain.

The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them.

January 27

Thawing a little at last. Thermometer 35°. 

JANUARY 27, 2017

The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them, or the discoverers of them, whether a sharper perception and curiosity in them led to the discovery or the greater novelty more inspired their report.

Accordingly I love most to read the accounts of a country, its natural productions and curiosities, by those who first settled it, and also the earliest, though often unscientific, writers on natural science.

Hear the unusual sound of pattering rain this after noon, though it is not yet in earnest.

Thermometer to-day commonly at 38°. 

Wood in the stove is slow to burn; often goes out with this dull atmosphere. But it is less needed. 

10 p. m. — Hear music below. It washes the dust off my life and everything I look at. 

Was struck to-day with the admirable simplicity of Pratt. He told me not only of the discovery of the tower of Babel, which, from the measures given, he had calculated could not stand between the roads at the Mill Pond, but of the skeleton of a man twenty feet long. 

Also of an eyestone which he has, bought of Betty Nutting, about as big as half a pea. Just lay it in your eye, bind up your eye with a handkerchief, and go to bed. It will not pain you, but you will feel it moving about, and when it has gathered all the dirt in the eye to itself, it will always come out, and you will probably find it in the handkerchief. It is a little thing and you must look sharp for it. He often lends his.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 27, 1857

The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them,. . .Accordingly I love most to read. . . the earliest, though often unscientific, writers on natural science. See February 16, 1852 ("Linnæus says elements are simple, naturalia composed by divine art. And these two embrace all things on earth. Physics treats of the properties of elementa, natural science of naturalia. . . .By the artificial system we learn the names of plants, by the natural their relations to one another; but still it remains to learn their relation to man. The poet does more for us in this department."); February 17, 1852 ("If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnaeus at once"); December 16, 1859 ("To Cambridge, where I read in Gerard's Herbal. His . . descriptions are, to my mind, greatly superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not according to rule but to his natural delight in the plants. He brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. . . .It is the keen joy and discrimination of the child who has just seen a flower for the first time and comes running in with it to its friends. . . . He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations.")

Hear music below. It washes the dust off my life and everything I look at. See January 13, 1857 (“I hear one thrumming a guitar below stairs. It reminds me of moments that I have lived.”); January 24, 1852 ("I hear the tones of my sister's piano below . It reminds me of strains which once I heard more frequently, when, possessed with the inaudible rhythm, I sought my chamber in the cold and commụned with my own thoughts")

January 27.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  January 27

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The most poetic and truest account of objects

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

The steady, soaking, rushing sound of the rain on the shingles is musical.

February 15

Commenced a fine half snow half rain yesterday afternoon. 

All rain and harder in the night, and now quite a thaw, still raining finely, with great dark puddles amid the snow, and the cars detained by wet rails. 

Does not a thaw succeed that blue atmosphere observed on the 11th? — a thaw, as well as warmer nights and hoar frosts? 

All day a steady, warm, imprisoning rain carrying off the snow.  not unmusical on my roof. 

It is a rare time for the student and reader who cannot go abroad in the afternoon, provided he can keep awake, for we are wont to be drowsy as cats in such weather. Without, it is not walking but wading. 

It is so long since I have heard it that the steady, soaking, rushing sound of the rain on the shingles is musical. 

February 15, 2015

The fire needs no replenishing, and we save our fuel. It seems like a distant forerunner of spring. 

It is because I am allied to the elements that the sound of the rain is thus soothing to me. The sound soaks into my spirit, as the water into the earth, reminding me of the season when snow and ice will be no more, when the earth will be thawed and drink up the rain as fast as it falls.

 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 15, 1855

February 14. February 15. February 16

The steady, soaking, rushing sound of the rain on the shingles is musical. See February 15, 1859 ("the gentle, spring like rain begins. . .We rejoice to be wetted, and the very smell of wet woollen clothes exhilarates us. "); See also  February 8, 1857 ("Youthful senses, not enervated by luxury, hear music in the wind and rain and running water . . . I hear it in the softened air of these warm February days which have broken the back of the winter.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; The Eaves Begin to Run

The fire needs no replenishing, and we save our fuel. See February 18, 1854 ("I begin to think that my wood will last."); February 18, 1857 (“Thermometer at 1 P.M., 65. . . I sit all this day and evening without a fire, and some even have windows open.”); Compare February 3, 1856 (“The wind whistles round the northwest corner of the house and penetrates every crevice and consumes the wood in the stoves, — soon blows it all away. An armful goes but little way. Such a day makes a great hole in the wood-pile.”) See also Walden ("One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in . . . the days have grown sensibly longer and I see how I shall get through the winter without adding to my wood pile for large fires are no longer necessary I am on the alert for the first signs of spring.")

The musical sound 

of  rain on the shingles soaks 

into my spirit.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The steady, soaking, rushing sound of the rain 

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550215

Lightning this evening, after a day of successive rains.

March 8.

Steady rain on the roof in the night, suggesting April-like warmth. This will help melt the snow and ice and take the frost out of the ground. 

What pretty wreaths the mountain cranberry makes, curving upward at the extremity! The leaves are now a dark, glossy red, and wreath and all are of such a shape as might fitly be copied in wood or stone or architectural foliages. 

I wrote a letter for an Irishman night before last, sending for his wife in Ireland to come to this country. One sentence which he dictated was, "Don't mind the rocking of the vessel, but take care of the children that they be not lost overboard." 

Lightning this evening, after a day of successive rains.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 8, 1854

Lightning this evening, after a day of successive rains. See February 15, 1861("A little thunder and lightning late in the afternoon"); February 23, 1860 ("About 4 P. M. a smart shower, ushered in by thunder and succeeded by a brilliant rainbow "); March 16, 1854 (“ It is warm weather. A thunder-storm in the evening.”); March 25, 1860 ("The 9th, it is quite warm, with a southwest wind. The first lightning is seen in the horizon by one who is out in the evening")

A different mood or season of the mind

August 25.

P. M. — To Conantum. 

The dandelion blooms again. 

One of the most noticeable wild fruits at present is the Viburnum nudum berries, their variegated cymes amid the green leaves in the swamps or low grounds, some whitish, some greenish, some red, some pink, some rose-purple and very beautiful, — not so beautiful, however, off the bush, — some dark purple or blue, and some black whose bloom is rubbed off, — a very rich sight. 

The silky cornel is the most common every where, bordering the river and swamps, its drooping cymes of amethystine (?) china or glass beads mingled with whitish. 

The fruit of the Viburnum Lentago is now very handsome, with its sessile cymes of large elliptical berries, green on one side and red with a purple bloom on the other or exposed side, not yet purple, blushing on one cheek. 

Many pyrus leaves are now red in the swamps, and some Viburnum nudum.

Yesterday was a hot day, but oh, this dull, cloudy, breezy, thoughtful weather in which the creak of the cricket sounds louder, preparatory to a cheerful storm!  How grateful to our feelings is the approach of autumn!  We have had no serious storm since spring.  What a salad to my spirits is this cooler, darker day!

I hear no birds sing these days, only the plaintive note of young bluebirds, or the peep of a robin, or the scream of a jay, to whom all seasons are indifferent, the mew of a catbird, the link link of a bobolink, or the twitter of a goldfinch, all faint and rare. The great bittern is still about, but silent and shy.

At length, before sundown, it begins to rain. You can hardly say when it began, and now, after dark, the sound of it dripping and pattering without is quite cheering. It is long since I heard it. One of those serious and normal storms ~ not a shower which you can see through, not a transient cloud that drops rain ~ something regular, a fall rain, coincident with a different mood or season of the mind.  

Methinks the truly weather-wise will know themselves and find the signs of rain in their own moods, the aspect of their own skies or thoughts, and not consult swallows and spiders. Does a mind in sympathy with nature need a hygrometer?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 25, 1852

See  September 18, 1860  ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow."); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.

Methinks the truly weather-wise will know themselves and find the signs of rain in their own moods. See January 26, 1852 (" Would you see your mind, look at the sky. Would you know your own moods, be weather-wise.")

A cheering fall rain

brings a different mood or

season of the mind.

To Flint's Pond

July 30

The fore part of this month was the warmest weather we have had; the last part, sloping toward autumn, has reflected some of its coolness, for we are very forward to anticipate the fall. 

How long since I heard a veery?  Do they go, or become silent, when the goldfinches herald the autumn? 

Do not all flowers that blossom after mid-July remind us of the fall? 

After midsummer we have a belated feeling as if we had all been idlers, and are forward to see in each sight and hear in each sound some presage of the fall, just as in middle age man anticipates the end of life.

The ripple-marks on the east shore of Flint's are nearly parallel firm ridges in the white sand, one inch or more apart. They are very distinctly felt by the naked feet of the wader.  

I notice a small blue egg washed up and half buried by the white sand, and as it lay there, alternately wet and dry, no color could be fairer, no gem could have a more advantageous or favorable setting. And is not that shell something very precious that houses that winged life? 

Caught in a thunder-shower, when south of Flint's Pond. It is a grand sound, that of the rain on the leaves of the forest a quarter of a mile distant, approaching.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 30, 1852


After midsummer we have a belated feeling. .See July 26, 1853 ("How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent! This the afternoon of the year.”) See also A Book of the Seasons: Midsummer midlife blues.

July 30. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 30

The grand sound of rain

on the leaves of the forest –

distant, approaching.

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

At mid-afternoon caught in a deluging rain

July 31.

Decidedly dog-days, and a strong musty scent, not to be wondered at after the copious rains and the heat of yesterday. 

At mid-afternoon I am caught in a deluging rain as I stand under a maple by the Assabet shore. The considerable shower at first but slightly dimples the water, and I see the differently shaded or lit currents of the river through it all; but anon it begins to rain very hard, and a myriad white globules dance or rebound an inch or two from the surface, where the big drops fall, and I hear a sound as if it rains pebbles or shot.

Looking on a water surface, you can see as well as hear when it rains very hard.

At this season the sound of a gentler rain than this, i. e. the sound of the dripping rain on the leaves, which are now dark and hard, yields a dry sound as if the drops struck on paper, but six weeks ago, when the leaves were so yellowish and tender, methinks it was a softer sound, as was the rustling.

Now, in the still moonlight, the dark foliage stands almost stiff and dark against the sky.

Before it rained hardest I could see in the midst of the dark and smoother water a lighter - colored and rougher surface, generally in oblong patches, which moved steadily down the stream, and this, I think, was the new water from above welling up and making its way down ward amid the old.

The water or currents of a river are thus not homogeneous, but the surface is seen to be of two shades, the smoother and darker water which already fills its bed [?] and the fresh influx of lighter colored and rougher, probably more rapid, currents which spot it here and there; i. e., some water seems to occupy it as a lake to some extent, other is passing through it as a stream, — the lacustrine and the fluviatile water.

These lighter reaches without reflections (?) are, as it were, water wrong side up. But do I ever see these except when it rains? And are they not the rain water which has not yet mingled with the water of the river?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 31, 1860

At mid-afternoon I am caught in a deluging rain. See  July 31, 1858 ("You are liable to be overtaken by a thunder-shower these afternoons. ")

Differently shaded or lit currents Are they not the rain water which has not yet mingled with the water of the river? See April 17, 1856 ("Even in the midst of this rain I am struck by the variegated surface of the water, different portions reflecting the light differently . . . Broad streams of light water stretch away between streams of dark, as if they were different kinds of water unwilling to mingle.)"); June 17, 1859 ("The different-colored currents, light and dark, are seen through it all. At last the whole surface is nicked with the rebounding drops ...”); March 20, 1860 ("In this April rain . . . those alternate dark and light patches on the surface, all alike dimpled with the falling drops. . . . It reminds me of the season when you sit under a bridge and watch the dimples made by the rain.")

July 31.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 31

At mid-afternoon

caught in a deluging rain

under a maple.

.

A myriad white

globules dance and rebound

where the big drops fall.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, At mid-afternoon

caught in a deluging rain

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-600731 

A merganser on the dock

At evening the sound of rain before it rains, pummeling the water. Starting a fire when the sky clears. Now rain in West Castleton coming across the water. The sight of rain before it rains. The sound of rain...the sound of rain.

No way the fire is still going. But hot coals glow when the rain stops. Cook over the fire and eat as the sunset lingers, followed by a setting new moon and morning, a merganser on the dock, mist rising.

Zphx, June 25, 2009

The other day it rains all afternoon as i sit by an open window in my attic room thinking of you listening to the sound of rain. The sound of rain stirring the embers of memory. The heat of our flame. The sound of rain. 20190621