The tide in my thoughts,

September 3. 

daybreak, September 3, 2018

1 A. M., moon waning, to Conantum. 

A warm night. A thin coat sufficient. 

I hear an apple fall, as I go along the road. 

Meet a man going to market thus early. 

There are no mists to diversify the night. Its features are very simple. 

I hear no whip-poor-will or other bird. 

See no fireflies. 

Saw a whip- poor-will (?) flutter across the road.

Hear the dumping sound of frogs on the river meadow, and occasionally a kind of croak as from a bittern there. 

It is very dewy, and I bring home much mud on my shoes. This is a peculiarity of night, — its dews, water resuming its reign. 

Return before dawn. 

Morning and evening are more attractive than midnight. 

I will endeavor to separate the tide in my thoughts, or what is due to the influence of the moon, from the current distractions and fluctuations. The winds which the sun has aroused go down at evening, and the lunar influence may then perchance be detected. 

Of late I have not heard the wood thrush.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 3, 1852

To separate the tide in my thoughts . . . from the current distractions and fluctuations. See  September 21, 1851 ("But the moon is not to be judged alone by the quantity of light she sends us, but also by her influence on the earth. No thinker can afford to overlook the influence of the moon any more than the astronomer can. “The moon gravitates towards the earth, and the earth reciprocally towards the moon.” This statement of the astronomer would be bald and meaningless, if it were not in fact a symbolical expression of the value of all lunar influence on man . Even the astronomer admits that “the notion of the moon's influence on terrestrial things was confirmed by her manifest effect upon the ocean,” but is not the poet who walks by night conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence, in which the ocean within him overflows its shores and bathes the dry land? 'Has he not his spring-tides and his neap-tides, the former sometimes combining with the winds of heaven to produce those memorable high tides of the calendar which leave their marks for ages?");July 26, 1853 ("I mark again the sound of crickets or locusts about alders, etc. about this time when the first asters open, which makes you fruitfully meditative, helps condense your thoughts, like the mel dews in the afternoon. . . .Such little objects check the diffuse tide of our thoughts and bring it to a head, which thrills us. They are such fruits as music, poetry, love, which humanity bears") See also January 22, 1852 ("My thoughts are my company."); March 1, 1860 ("I have thoughts, as I walk, on some subject that is running in my head, but all their pertinence seems gone before I can get home to set them down"); June 6, 1857 (“A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. ”); August 7, 1854 ("Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness?"); September 14, 1859 (""Like the fruits, when cooler weather and frosts arrive, we too are braced and ripened. . . . our green and leafy and pulpy thoughts acquire color and flavor, and perchance a sweet nuttiness at last.)

Of late I have not heard the wood thrush. See August 12, 1854 ("Have not heard a wood thrush since last week of July."); August 14, 1853 ("I hear no wood thrushes for a week.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush

See no fireflies. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies

The never-failing wood thrush inviting the day once more to enter his pine woods.

August 17.

Twenty minutes before 5 a. m. — To Cliffs and Walden.

Dawn.

No breathing of chip-birds nor singing of robins as in spring, but still the cock crows lustily.

The creak of the crickets sounds louder.

As I go along the back road, hear two or three song sparrows.

This morning's red, there being a misty cloud there, is equal to an evening red.

The woods are very still. I hear only a faint peep or twitter from one bird, then the never-failing wood thrush, it being about sunrise, and after, on the Cliff, the phoebe note of a chickadee, a night-warbler, a creeper (?), and a pewee (?), and, later still, the huckleberry-bird and red-eye, but all few and faint.

Cannot distinguish the steam of the engine toward Waltham from one of the morning fogs over hollows in woods.

Lespedeza violacea var. (apparently) angustifolia (?), sessiliflora of Bigelow. Also another L. violacea, or at least violet, perhaps different from what I saw some time since.

Gerardia pedicularia, bushy gerardia, almost ready.

The white cornel berries are dropping off before they are fairly white.

Is not the hibiscus a very bright pink or even flesh- color? It is so delicate and peculiar. I do not think of any flower just like it. It reminds me of some of the wild geraniums most. It is a singular, large, delicate, high-colored flower with a tree-like leaf.

Gaylussada frondosa, blue-tangle, dangle-berry, ripe perhaps a week.

Weston of Lincoln thought there were more grapes, both cultivated and wild, than usual this year, because the rose-bugs had not done so much harm. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal August 17, 1852

The never-failing wood thrush about sunrise. See  August 10, 1856 ("Hear the wood thrush still."); August  12, 1851 ("I hear a wood thrush even now, long before sunrise. . .The wood thrush, that beautiful singer, inviting the day once more to enter his pine woods.") Compare August 12, 1854 ("Have not heard a wood thrush since last week of July. "); August 14, 1853 ("I hear no wood thrushes for a week.")

Lespedeza violacea.  See August 19, 1856 ("I spent my afternoon among the desmodiums and lespedezas, sociably. . . .  All the lespedezas are apparently more open and delicate in the woods, and of a darker green, especially the violet ones. When not too much crowded, their leaves are very pretty and perfect.") and  note to August 14, 1856 ("A short elliptic-leaved Lespedeza violacea, loose and open in Veery Nest Path, at Flint's Pond. In press.")

Bushy gerardia, almost ready. See August 12, 1856 ("Gerardia pedicularia, how long?"); August 23, 1856 ("On the west side of Emerson's Cliff, I notice many Gerardia pedicularia out. A bee is hovering about one bush");August 24, 1858 ("Climbing the hill at the bend, I find Gerardia Pedicularia, apparently several days, or how long?")

A record of a sunset. At midnight by moonlight.

June 28.

OEnothera biennis, evening-primrose, with its conspicuous flowers but rather unsightly stem and leaves. 

The Rubus odorata, purple flowering raspberry, in gardens. 

Potatoes for some time. 

Evening. 7 p.m. — Moon more than half. 

There are meteorologists, but who keeps a record of the fairer sunsets? 

While men are recording the direction of the wind, they neglect to record the beauty of the sunset or the rainbow. 

The sun not yet set. 

The bobolink sings descending to the meadow as I go along the railroad to the pond. 

The seringo-bird and the common song sparrow, — and the swallows twitter. 

The plaintive strain of the lark, coming up from the meadow, is perfectly adapted to the hour. 

When I get nearer the wood, the veery is heard, and the oven-bird, or whet-saw, sounds hollowly from within the recesses of the wood. 

The clouds in the west are edged with fiery red. A few robins faintly sing. 

The huckleberry-bird in more open fields in the woods. The thrasher?

The sun is down. 

The night-hawks are squeaking in the somewhat dusky air and occasionally making the ripping sound; the chewinks sound; the bullfrogs begin, and the toads; also tree-toads more numerously. 

Walden imparts to the body of the bather a remark ably chalky-white appearance, whiter than natural, tinged with blue, which, combined with its magnifying and distorting influence, produces a monstrous and ogre like effect, proving, nevertheless, the purity of the water. 

The river water, on the other hand, imparts to the bather a yellowish tinge.

There is a very low mist on the water close to the shore, a few inches high. 

The moon is brassy or golden now, and the air more dusky; yet I hear the pea-wai and the wood thrush, and now a whip-poor-will before I have seen a star. 

The walker in the woods at this hour takes note of the different veins of air through which he passes, — the fresher and cooler in the hollows, laden with the condensed fragrance of plants, as it were distilled in dews; and yet the warmer veins in a cool evening like this do not fail to be agreeable, though in them the air is comparatively lifeless or exhausted of its vitality. It circulates about from pillar to post, from wood-side to side-hill, like a dog that has lost its master, now the sun is gone. 

Now it is starlight; perhaps that dark cloud in the west has concealed the evening star before.

Yet I hear a chewink, veery, and wood thrush. 

Nighthawks and whip-poor-wills, of course. 

A whip-poor-will whose nest, perchance, I am near, on the side of the Cliff, hovers in the dusky air about ten feet from me, now on this side, then on that, on quivering wings, inspecting me, showing the white on its wings. It holds itself stationary for a minute. 

It is the first warm night for a week, and I hear the toads by the river very numerous. 

First there was sundown, then starlight. 

Starlight! That would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise. 

That is an epoch, when the last traces of daylight have disappeared and the night (nox) has fairly set in. 

Is not the moon a mediator? 

She is a light-giver that does not dazzle me. 

I have camped out all night on the tops of four mountains, — Wachusett, Saddle-back, Ktaadn, and Monadnock, — and I usually took a ramble over the summit at midnight by moonlight. 

I remember the moaning of the wind on the rocks, and that you seemed much nearer to the moon than on the plains. The light is then in harmony with the scenery. Of what use the sunlight to the mountain-summits? From the cliffs you looked off into vast depths of illumined air.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 28, 1852

When I get nearer the wood, the veery is heard, and the oven-bird, or whet-saw, sounds hollowly from within the recesses of the wood. ...  Now it is starlight [y]et I hear a chewink, veery, and wood thrush. Compare July 28, 1854 ("Veery and wood thrush not very lately, nor oven-bird"); See also May 13, 1856 (“At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush; the tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. Also the oven-bird sings.”); May 19, 1860 (“By the path-side near there, what I should call a veery's nest with four light-blue eggs, but I have not heard the veery note this year, only the yorrick.“); June 11, 1852 ("The oven-bird and the thrasher sing. "); June 15, 1854 ("Thrasher and catbird sing still; summer yellowbird and Maryland yellow-throat sing still; and oven-bird and veery"); June 16, 1856 (“Heard . . . not only Wilson’s thrush, but evergreen forest note and tanager.”); June 21, 1852 (“I hear the veery and the huckleberry-bird and the catbird.”); July 10, 1854 ("The singing birds at present are . . . Red-eye, tanager, wood thrush, chewink, veery, oven-bird, — all even at midday.") July 27, 1852 (" Have I heard the veery lately?"): July 30, 1852 ("How long since I heard a veery? Do they go, or become silent, when the goldfinches herald the autumn? ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Veery

Now it is starlight; perhaps that dark cloud in the west has concealed the evening star before. . . .Starlight! That would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise. See  August 8, 1851 ("Starlight! that would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise.”); May 8, 1852 (“Starlight marks conveniently a stage in the evening, i. e. when the first star can be seen. ”); June 30, 1852 (“It is starlight about half an hour after sunset to-night; i. e. the first stars appear”); July 20, 1852 ("It is starlight. You see the first star in the southwest, and know not how much earlier you might have seen it had you looked.")

I have camped out all night on the tops of four mountains . . . and I usually took a ramble over the summit at midnight by moonlight. See March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to sec a distant mountain-top . . . whereon you camped for a night in your youth, which you have never revisited, still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Mountains in the Horizon and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June Moonlight

Heard my night-warbler on a solitary white pine in the Heywood Clearing by the Peak.

June 19.

June 19, 2020

P. M. – To Flint ’ s Pond.

I see large patches of blue - eyed grass in the meadow across the river from my window.

The pine woods at Thrush Alley emit that hot dry scent, reminding me even of days when I used to go a-blackberrying.

The air is full of the hum of invisible insects, and I hear a locust. Perhaps this sound indicates the time to put on a thin coat.

But the wood thrush sings as usual far in the wood.

A blue jay and a tanager come dashing into the pine under which I stand. The first flies directly away, screaming with suspicion or disgust, but the latter, more innocent, remains.

The cuckoo is heard, too, in the depths of the wood.

Heard my night-warbler on a solitary white pine in the Heywood Clearing by the Peak. Discovered it at last, looking like a small piece of black bark curving partly over the limb. No fork to its tail. It appeared black beneath; was very shy, not bigger than a yellowbird, and very slender.

In the middle of the path to Wharf Rock at Flint's Pond, the nest of a Wilson's thrush, five or six inches high, between the green stems of three or four golden rods, made of dried grass or fibres of bark, with dry oak leaves attached loosely, making the whole nine or ten inches wide, to deceive the eye. Two blue eggs. Like an accidental heap. Who taught it to do thus?

Lobelia Dortmanna, a day or two at most.

No grass balls yet.

That fine-rooted green plant on bottom sends up stems with black heads three or four inches. Do they become white?

Every one who has waded about the shores of a pond must have been surprised to find how much warmer the water was close to the shore, where only three or four inches deep, than a little further out.

I think I saw a young crow now fully grown.

Returned by Smith’s Hill and the Saw Mill Brook.

Got quite a parcel of strawberries on the hill.

The hellebore leaves by the brook are already half turned yellow. Plucked one blue early blueberry.

The strain of the bobolink now begins to sound a little rare. It never again fills the air as the first week after its arrival.

At this season we apprehend no long storm, only showers with or without thunder.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1853

Heard my night-warbler. Discovered it at last. See June 19, 1858 ("I do not hear the night-warbler so often as a few weeks ago. Birds generally do not sing so tumultuously.")  See also  May 17, 1858 ("Just after hearing my night-warbler I see two birds on a tree. ...[One perhaps golden-crowned thrush. ]”); May 19, 1858 (“Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low."); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”). and  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird . Note Thoreau;s night-warbler  is likely the oven-bird making its flight call. According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” 

In the middle of the path to Wharf Rock at Flint's Pond, the nest of a Wilson's thrush. See June 19, 1858 (“Boys have found this forenoon at Flint’s Pond one or more veery-nests on the ground. ”) and note to June 23, 1858 ("That rather low wood along the path which runs parallel with the shore of Flint's Pond, behind the rock, is evidently a favorite place for veery-nests. I have seen three there.")

I think I saw a young crow now fully grown. See.July 7, 1860 ("I see a flock of some twenty-five crows. Probably the young are just grown."); July 10, 1854 ("Crows are more noisy, probably anxious about young.")

The strain of the bobolink now begins to sound a little rare. See June 9, 1855 ("I think I have hardly heard a bobolink for a week or ten days.");June 15, 1852 ("The note of the bobolink begins to sound somewhat rare.") and note to July 7, 1859 ("The note of the bobolink has begun to sound rare?") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

A meadow and an island.

In all my rambles I have seen no landscape which can make me forget Fair Haven. I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with the same delight as ever. It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever, what this world is. Fair Haven Lake in the south, with its pine-covered island and its meadows, the hickories putting out fresh young yellowish leaves, and the oaks light-grayish ones, while the oven-bird thrums his sawyer-like strain, and the chewink rustles through the dry leaves or repeats his jingle on a tree-top, and the wood thrush, the genius of the wood, whistles for the first time his clear and thrilling strain, - it sounds as it did the first time I heard it. The sight of these budding woods intoxicates me, — this diet drink.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May, 1850


In all my rambles I have seen no landscape which can make me forget Fair Haven. See November 21, 1850 ("I see Fair Haven Pond with its island, and meadow between the island and the shore, and a strip of perfectly still and smooth water in the lee of the island, and two hawks, fish hawks perhaps, sailing over it. I do not see how it could be improved. Yet I do not see what these things can be."); February 14, 1851 ("One afternoon in the fall, November 21st, I saw Fair Haven Pond with its island and meadow; between the island and the shore, a strip of perfectly smooth water in the lee of the island; and two hawks sailing over it; and something more I saw which cannot easily be described . . .") April 14, 1852 ("Fair Haven Pond -- the pond, the meadow beyond the button-bush and willow curve, the island, and the meadow between the island and mainland with its own defining lines -- are all parted off like the parts of a mirror. A fish hawk is calmly sailing over all . . . "); May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”)May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”); October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape, and I sit down to behold it at my leisure. I think that Concord affords no better view.");  March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim. “) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Fair Haven Pond

I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world

 May 17. 

May 17, 2019

5 a. m. — To Island by boat.

 Everything has sensibly advanced during the warm and moist night. Some trees, as the small maples in the street, already look verdurous. The air has not sensibly cooled much. The chimney swallows are busily skimming low over the river and just touching the water without regard to me, as a week ago they did, and as they circle back overhead to repeat the experiment, I hear a sharp snap or short rustling of their wings. 

The button-bush now shows the first signs of life, on a close inspection, in its small round, smooth, greenish buds. 

The polygonums and pontederias are getting above water, the latter like spoons on long handles. 

The Cornus florida is blossoming; will be fairly out to-day.1 

The Polygonatum pubescens; one on the Island has just opened. This is the smaller Solomon's-seal.

 A thorn there will blossom to-day. 

The Viola palmata is out there, in the meadow. 

Everywhere the huckleberry's sticky leaves are seen expanding, and the high blueberry is in blossom. Now is the time to ad mire the very young and tender leaves. The blossoms of the red oak hang down under its young leaves as under a canopy. 

The petals have already fallen from the Amelanchier Botryapium, and young berries are plainly forming. 

I hear the wood pewee, — pe-a-wai. The heat of yesterday has brought him on. 

P. M. — To Corner Spring and Fair Haven Cliffs. 

Myosotis laxa is out a day or two. At first does not run; is short and upright like M. stricta.

 Golden senecio will be out by to-morrow at least.

 The early cinquefoil is now in its prime and spots the banks and hillsides and dry meadows with its dazzling yellow. How lively! It is one of the most interesting yellow flowers. 

The fields are also now whitened, perhaps as much as ever, with the houstonia. 

The buck-bean is out, apparently to-day, the singularly fuzzy- looking blossom. How inconspicuous its leaves now!

 The rhodora is peculiar for being, like the peach, a profusion of pink blossoms on a leafless stem. This shrub is, then, a late one to leaf out. 

The bobolink skims by before the wind how far without motion of his wings! sometimes borne sidewise as he turns his head — for thus he can fly — and tinkling, linking, incessantly all the way. 

How very beautiful, like the fairest flowers, the young black oak shoots with leaves an inch long now! like red velvet on one side and downy white on the other, with only a red edge. Compare this with the pinker white oak. 

The Salix nigra just in bloom.

May 19, 2023

 The trientalis, properly called star-flower, is a white star, single, double, or treble. 

The fringed polygala surprises us in meadows or in low woods as a rarer, richer, and more delicate color, with a singularly tender or delicate-looking leaf. 

As you approach midsummer, the color of flowers is more intense and fiery. The reddest flower is the flower especially. Our blood is not white, nor is it yellow, nor even blue. 

The nodding trillium has apparently been out a day or two. Methinks it smells like the lady's-slipper.

Also the Ranunculus recurvatus for a day or two. The small two or three leaved Solomon's- seal is just out.

 The Viola cucullata is sometimes eight inches high, and leaves in proportion. It must be the largest of the violets except perhaps the yellow. 

The V. blanda is almost entirely out of bloom at the spring. 

Returning toward Fair Haven, I perceive at Potter's fence the first whiff of that ineffable fragrance from the Wheeler meadow, — as it were the promise of strawberries, pineapples, etc., in the aroma of their flowers, so blandly sweet, — aroma that fitly fore runs the summer and the autumn's most delicious fruits. It would certainly restore all such sick as could be conscious of it. The odors of no garden are to be named with it. It is wafted from the garden of gardens. It appears to blow from the river meadow from the west or southwest, here about forty rods wide or more. If the air here always possessed this bland sweetness, this spot would become famous and be visited by sick and well from all parts of the earth. It would be carried off in bottles and become an article of traffic which kings would strive to monopolize. The air of Elysium cannot be more sweet. 

Cardamine hirsuta out some time by the ivy tree.

The Viola lanceolata seems to pass into the cucullata insensibly, but can that small round-leaved white violet now so abundantly in blossom in open low ground be the same with that large round-leaved one now about out of blossom in shady low ground ? *

Arabis rhomboidea just out by the willow on the Corner causeway. 

The Ranunculus repens perhaps yesterday, with its spotted leaves and its not recurved calyx though furrowed stem. Was that a very large Veronica serpyllifolia by the Corner Spring? Who shall keep with the lupines? They will apparently blossom within a week under Fair Haven. 

The Viola sagittata, of which Viola ovata is made a variety, is now very marked there. 

The V. pedata there presents the greatest array of blue of any flower as yet. The flowers are so raised above their leaves, and so close together, that they make a more indelible impression of blue on the eye; it is almost dazzling. I blink as I look at them, they seem to reflect the blue rays so forcibly, with a slight tinge of lilac. To be sure, there is no telling what the redder ovata might not do if they grew as densely, so many eyes or scales of blue side by side, forming small shields of that color four or five inches in diameter. The effect and intensity is very much increased by the numbers. 

I hear the first unquestionable nighthawk squeak and see him circling far off high above the earth. It is now about 5 o'clock p. m. 

The tree-toads are heard in the rather moist atmosphere, as if presaging rain. 

I hear the dumping sound of bull(?)frogs, telling the weather is warm. The paddocks, as if too lazy to be disturbed, say now to the intruder, " don't, don't, don't, don't ; " also in the morning after the first sultry night. 

The chinquapin oak may be said to flower and leave out at the same time with the ilicifolia. It is distinguished as well by its yellow catkins as by its leaves. 

Pyrus arbutifolia is out, to-day or yesterday. 

A Crataegus just out.

I sit now on a rock on the west slope of Fair Haven orchard, an hour before sunset, this warm, almost sultry evening, the air filled with the sweetness of apple blossoms (this is blossom week) , — or I think it is mainly that meadow fragrance still, — the sun partly concealed behind a low cloud in the west, the air cleared by last evening's thunder-shower, the river now beautifully smooth (though a warm, bland breeze blows up here), full of light and reflecting the placid western sky and the dark woods which overhang it. 

I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world, it was so soothing. I saw that I could not go home to supper and lose it. It was so much fairer, serener, more beautiful, than my mood had been. 

The fields beyond the river have unexpectedly a smooth, lawn-like beauty, and in beautiful curves sweep round the edge of the woods. The rapidly expanding foliage of the deciduous (last evening's rain or moisture has started them) lights up with a lively yellow green the dark pines which we have so long been used to. Some patches (I speak of woods half a mile or more off) are a lively green, some gray or reddish-gray still, where white oaks stand. 

With the stillness of the air comes the stillness of the water. 

The sweetest singers among the birds are heard more distinctly now, as the reflections are seen more distinctly in the water, — the veery constantly now. 

Methinks this serene, ambrosial beauty could hardly have been but for last evening's thunder-shower, which, to be sure, barely touched us, but cleared the air and gave a start to vegetation. 

The elm on the opposite side of the river has now a thin but dark verdure, almost as dark as the pines, while, as I have said, the prevailing color of the deciduous woods is a light yellowish and sunny green. 

The woods rarely if ever present a more beautiful aspect from afar than now. 

Methinks the black oak at early leafing is more red than the red oak. 

Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds — that partakes of the light of the day and the stillness of the night ! 

Sit on Cliffs. 

The Shrub Oak Plain, where are so many young white oaks, is now a faint rose-color, almost like a distant peach orchard in bloom and seen against sere red ground. What might at first be taken for the color of some sere leaves and bare twigs still left, its tender red expanding leaves. 

You might say of the white oaks and of many black oaks at least, "When the oaks are in the red." 

The perfect smoothness of Fair Haven Pond, full of light and reflecting the wood so distinctly, while still occasionally the sun shines warm and brightly from behind a cloud, giving the completest contrast of sunshine and shade, is enough to make this hour memorable. 

The red pin cushion gall is already formed on the new black oak leaves, with little grubs in them, and the leaves, scarcely more than two inches long, are already attacked by other foes. 

Looking down from these rocks, the black oak has a very light hoary or faint silvery color; the white oak, though much less advanced, has a yet more hoary color; but the red oaks (as well as the hickories) have a lively, glossy aspen green, a shade lighter than the birch now, and their long yellowish catkins appear further advanced than the black. 

Some black as well as white oaks are reddish still. 

The new shoots now color the whole of the juniper (creeping) with a light yellow tinge. It appears to be just in blossom,1 and those little green berries must be already a year old; and, as it is called dioecious, these must be the fertile blossoms. 

This must be Krigia Virginica now budded, close by the juniper,  and will blossom in a day or two.

The low black berry, apparently, on Cliffs is out, earlier than else where, and Veronica arvensis (?), very small, obscure pale-blue flower, and, to my surprise, Linaria Canadensis. 

Returning slowly, I sit on the wall of the orchard by the white pine. 

Now the cows begin to low, and the river reflects the golden light of the sun just before his setting. The sough of the wind in the pines is more noticeable, as if the air were otherwise more still and hollow. 

The wood thrush has sung for some time. He touches a depth in me which no other bird's song does. He has learned to sing, and no thrumming of the strings or tuning disturbs you. Other birds may whistle pretty well, but he is the master of a finer-toned instrument. His song is musical, not from association merely, not from variety, but the character of its tone. It is all divine, — a Shakespeare among birds, and a Homer too. 

This sweetness of the air, does it not always first succeed a thunder-storm? Is it not a general sweetness, and not to be referred to a particular plant? 

He who cuts down woods beyond a certain limit exterminates birds. 

How red are the scales of some hickory buds, now turned back! 

The fragrance of the apple blossom reminds me of a pure and innocent and unsophisticated country girl bedecked for church.

The purple sunset is reflected from the surface of the river, as if its surface were tinged with lake. 

Here is a field sparrow that varies his strain very sweetly.

Coming home from Spring by Potter's Path to the Corner road in the dusk, saw a dead-leaf-colored hylodes; detected it by its expanding and relapsing bubble, nearly twice as big as its head, as it sat on an alder twig six inches from ground and one rod from a pool. 

The beach plum is out to-day.

The whip-poor- will sings. Large insects now fly at night. This is a somewhat sultry night. We must begin now to look out for insects about the candles.

The lilac out. 

Genius rises above nature; in spite of heat, in spite of cold, works and lives.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal , May 17, 1853

The Polygonatum pubescens; one on the Island has just opened. This is the smaller Solomon's-seal. See  May 12, 1858 ("The Polygonatum pubescens is strongly budded."); May 22, 1856 ("Polygonatum pubescens at rock.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Solomon's Seal

That ineffable fragrance from the Wheeler meadow, — as it were the promise of strawberries, pineapples, etc., in the aroma of their flowers. See May 16, 1852 (“The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose. A fine, delicious fragrance, which will come to the senses only when it will.”); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower. . . .. Nature now is perfectly genial to man.”); May 6, 1855 ("that unaccountable fugacious fragrance, as of all flowers”)

The air filled with the sweetness of apple blossoms (this is blossom week). Compare May 27, 1857 ("This is blossom week, beginning last Sunday (the 24th).") and note to May 25, 1852 (It is blossom week with the apples.”).

I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world. See May 1850 ("I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with the same delight as ever. It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever, what this world is. . . ."); May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today.."). May 16, 1854 (" It is a splendid day, so clear and bright and fresh; the warmth of the air and the bright tender verdure putting forth on all sides make an impression of luxuriance and genialness, so perfectly fresh");  May 17, 1852 ("Now the sun has come out after the May storm, how bright, how full of freshness and tender promise and fragrance is the new world!"): May 18, 1852 ("The world can never be more beautiful than now.”); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised  thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”); October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape.”); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.") See also August 6, 1852 ("All men beholding a rainbow begin to understand the significance of the Greek name for the world,- Kosmos, or beauty. We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower.");  December 11, 1855 ("We get only transient and partial glimpses of the beauty of the world."); October 4, 1859 ("In what book is this world and its beauty described?”)

I hear the first unquestionable nighthawk squeak and see him circling far off high above the earth.. See May 17, 1860 (" A nighthawk with its distinct white spots ") See also   April 1, 1853 ("Hear what I should not hesitate to call the squeak of the nighthawk , - only Wilson makes them arrive early in May"); April 19, 1853 ("Hear again that same nighthawk-like sound over a meadow at evening. "); May 5, 1852 ("No nighthawks heard yet.");  May 9, 1853 ("Now at starlight that same nighthawk or snipe squeak is heard but no hovering.");   May 16, 1859 ("At eve the first spark of a nighthawk. ");. May 25, 1852 (" First nighthawks squeak and boom") and also see  A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk

This sweetness of the air, does it not always first succeed a thunder-storm? See May 17, 1852 (" After a storm at this season, the sun comes out and lights up the tender expanding leaves, and all nature is full of light and fragrance, and the birds sing without ceasing, and the earth is a fairyland . . . how bright, how full of freshness and tender promise and fragrance is the new world! ") ; May 11, 1854 (" I suspect that summer weather may be always ushered in in a similar manner, — thunder-shower, rainbow, smooth water, and warm night.")

Surprised to behold 

the serene and everlasting 

beauty of the world.

Tobacco-pipes now in their prime.

August 10

August 10, 2018

P. M. — To yew, etc. 

It is cloudy and misty dog-day weather, with a good deal of wind, and thickening to occasional rain this afternoon. This rustling wind is agreeable, reminding me, by its unusual sound, of other and ruder seasons. The most of a storm you can get now is rather exhilarating. The grass and bushes are quite wet, and the pickers are driven from the berry-field. The rabbit’s-foot clover is very wet to walk through, holding so much water. The fine grass falls over from each side into the middle of the woodland paths and wets me through knee-high. 

I see many tobacco-pipes, now perhaps in their prime, if not a little late, and hear of pine-sap. The Indian pipe, though coming with the fungi and suggesting, no doubt, a close relation to them, — a sort of connecting link between flowers and fungi, — is a very interesting flower, and will bear a close inspection when fresh. The whole plant has a sweetish, earthy odor, though Gray says it is inodorous. 

I see them now on the leafy floor of this oak wood, in families of twelve to thirty sisters of various heights,—from two to eight inches,— as close together as they can stand, the youngest standing close up to the others, all with faces yet modestly turned downwards under their long hoods. Here is a family of about twenty-five within a diameter of little more than two inches, lifting the dry leaves for half their height in a cylinder about them. 

They generally appear bursting up through the dry leaves, which, elevated around, may serve to prop them. Springing up in the shade with so little color, they look the more fragile and delicate. They have very delicate pinkish half-naked stems with a few semitransparent crystalline-white scales for leaves, and from the sinuses at the base of the petals without (when their heads are drooping) more or less dark purple is reflected, like the purple of the arteries seen on a nude body. They appear not to flower only when upright. Gray says they are upright in fruit. They soon become black-specked, even before flowering. 

Am surprised to find the yew with ripe fruit (how long ?),— though there is a little still small and green, — where I had not detected fertile flowers. It fruits very sparingly, the berries growing singly here and there, on last year’s wood, and hence four to six inches below the extremities of the upturned twigs. It is the most surprising berry that we have: first, since it is borne by an evergreen, hemlock-like bush with which we do not associate a soft and bright-colored berry, and hence its deep scarlet contrasts the more strangely with the pure, dark evergreen needles; and secondly, because of its form, so like art, and which could be easily imitated in wax, a very thick scarlet cup or mortar with a dark-purple (?) bead set at the bottom. My neighbors are not prepared to believe that such a berry grows in Concord. 

I notice several of the hylodes hopping through the woods like wood frogs, far from water, this mizzling [day]. They are probably common in the woods, but not noticed, on account of their size, or not distinguished from the wood frog. 

I also saw a young wood frog, with the dark line through the eye, no bigger than the others. 

One hylodes which I bring home has a perfect cross on its back,— except one arm of it. 

 spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer)

The wood thrush’s was a peculiarly woodland nest, made solely of such materials as that unfrequented grove afforded, the refuse of the wood or shore of the pond. There was no horsehair, no twine nor paper nor other relics of art in it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 10, 1858

Springing up in the shade with so little color, they generally appear bursting up through the dry leaves, which, elevated around, may serve to prop them.They soon become black-specked, even before flowering. See July 30, 1854 ("The tobacco-pipes are still pushing up white amid the dry leaves, sometimes lifting a canopy of leaves with them four or five inches."); September 21, 1857 ("an abundance of tobacco-pipe, which has begun to turn black at the tip of the petals and leaves. ")

A young wood frog, with the dark line through the eye, See September 12, 1857 ("I brought it close to my eye and examined it. . . . There was a conspicuous dark-brown patch along the side of the head")

One hylodes which I bring home has a perfect cross on its back. See October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — . . . the peeping of the hylodes for some time ,,,"); November 30, 1859 ("As I go home at dusk on the railroad causeway, I hear a hylodes peeping.")

The wood thrush’s was a peculiarly woodland nest. See July 31, 1858 ("Got the wood thrush’s nest of June 19th.")

August 10. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , August 10

 

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

New lieferungs of the fall.

August 4

August 4, 2018

To Walden by poorhouse road. 

Have had a gentle rain, and now with a lowering sky, but still I hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall. 

The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this. It has allayed all excitement. 

I hear the singular watery twitter of the goldfinch, ter tweeter e et or e ee, as it ricochets over, he and his russet ( ?) female. 

The chirp of the constant chip-bird and the plaintive strain of the lark, also. 

I must make a list of those birds which, like the lark and the robin, if they do not stay all the year, are heard to sing longest of those that migrate. 

The bobolink and thrasher, etc., are silent. 

English-haying is long since done, only meadow-haying going on now. 

I smell the fragrant life-everlasting, now almost out; another scent that reminds me of the autumn. 

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

What is that weed somewhat like wormwood and amaranth on the ditch by roadside here? 

What the vine now budded like clematis in the wall? 

Most huckleberries and blueberries and low blackberries are in their prime now. 

A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods is in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm at this season, when the air and water are perfectly still, but the sky still overcast; first, because the lake is very smooth at such a time, second, as the atmosphere is so shallow and contracted, being low-roofed with clouds, the lake as a lower heaven is much larger in proportion to it. With its glassy reflecting surface, it is somewhat more heavenly and more full of light than the regions of the air above it. 

There is a pleasing vista southward over and through a wide indentation in the hills which form its shore, where their opposite sides slope to each other so as to suggest a stream flowing from it in that direction through a wooded valley, toward some distant blue hills in Sudbury and Framingham, Goodman's and Nobscot; that is, you look over and between the low near and green hills to the distant, which are tinged with blue, the heavenly color. 

Such is what is fair to mortal eyes. In the meanwhile the wood thrush sings in the woods around the lake.

Pycnanthemum lanceolatum, probably as early as the other variety, Hypericum corymbosum. Spotted St. John's-wort, some time in July. 

History has not been so truthfully or livingly, convincingly, written but that we still need the evidence, the oral testimony of an eye-witness. Hence I am singularly surprised when I read of the celebrated Henry Jenkins (who lived to be some one hundred and sixty nine years old), who used to preface his conversation in this wise, "About a hundred and thirty years ago, when I was butler to Lord Conyers," etc. I am surprised to find that I needed this testimony to be convinced of the reality of Lord Conyers's existence.

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

Hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall. See August 4, 1851 ("I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn.”); August 4, 1856 ("Have heard the alder cricket some days. The turning-point is reached.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

I smell the fragrant life-everlasting, now almost out; another scent that reminds me of the autumn.See August 4, 1851 (“ I scent the sweet-scented life-everlasting, which is half expanded.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aromatic Herbs

The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this. See August 7, 1853 (“When I came forth it was cloudy and from time to time drizzling weather, . . .  soothing and inducing reflection. The river is dark and smooth these days, reflecting no brightness but dark clouds, and the goldfinch is heard twittering over; though presently a thicker mist or mizzle falls, and you are prepared for rain. The river and brooks look late and cool. The stillness and the shade enable you to collect and concentrate your thoughts.”)

A small lake in the woods. See Walden (“This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a gentle rain storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of evening, and the wood-thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air above it being shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more important. From a hill top near by, where the wood had recently been cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across the pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore there, where their opposite sides sloping toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream there was none. That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue.”) [a view from Heywood's Peak? ~ see walden pond a history p. 109]

As early as Hypericum corymbosum. Spotted St. John's-wort. See .July 9, 1854 ("Hypericum corymbosum, not yet ");July 11, 1854 ("Hypericum corymbosum in front of Lee's Cliff, a day or two"); July 21, 1856 ("Hypericum corymbosum, a day or two. The small hypericums are open only in the forenoon. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

August 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 4 

Most huckleberries

 blueberries and  blackberries 

are in their prime now.

Small lake in the woods

full of light and reflections

as the wood thrush sings.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, New lieferungs of the fall.

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