A year is made up of
a certain series and number
of sensations and thoughts
which have their language in nature.
Henry Thoreau, June 6, 1857
August, royal and rich.
Green corn now,
and melons have begun.
That month, surely, is distinguished
when melons ripen.
August 10, 1853
In August live on berries.
Be blown on by all the winds.
August 23, 1853
*****
Singing birds are scarce.
No catbird or thrush heard but
the pewee sings yet.
August 1, 1852
Perfect dog-days now
thick blue musty veil of mist
drawn before the sun.
To-day Fields sends me
a copy of "Walden" to
be published the 12th
I go up the hill
surrounded by its shadow
soothed by the stillness
on this rock on the
hilltop warm with the heat of
the departed sun
the depths of silence
like a fathomless ocean
my life is afloat.
On this rock in the
droppings of some bird are the
seeds of some berries.
Midsummer standstill.
That fine z-ing of locusts
is an August sound.
August 2, 1859
East window at noon.
Crickets and the sound of a
distant piano.
August 3, 1852
Small lake in the woods
full of light and reflections
as the wood thrush sings.
August rain and mist
contract our horizon
to the near and small.
August 4, 1854
In low swampy woods
where cinnamon fern prevails.
it’s already fall.
August 4, 1854
Low, thick, flat white fog
on meadows after sunset
ushers in the night.
August 4, 1854
Such a profusion.
Each patch, each bush, seems fuller –
blacker than the last.
August 4, 1856
Lightning in the south,
clouds alternate with moonlight
all rest of the night.
August 4, 1860
Sobered by moonlight,
sensing my own existence,
who i am and where.
August 5, 1851
The blue horizon,
the blueness of the mountain,
blueberry blueness.
August 5, 1860
Mowers and rakers
bending to their manly work
with graceful motion.
August 5, 1854
Summer becomes an
old story. With the goldfinch
comes the goldenrod.
August 6, 1852
Fall coolness and clouds,
crickets steadily chirping
in mid-afternoon.
August 6, 1854
And all of Vermont
is but a succession of
parallel mountains.
August 6, 1860
The fruit of my spring
and summer ripen, its seed
hardens within me.
Along the river
a day of sunny water–
I see the fishes.
On the horizon
local cloud of the mountain,
isle in sunset sky.
August 9, 1860
Notes like nuts of sound,
like the sparkle on water,
friction on crisped air.
August 10, 1854
The pensive season.
At early evening the poet
collects his thoughts.
August 11, 1853
The Bidens Beckii
yellows the side of the river
below Hubbard Path.
August 12, 1854
Cool, fall-like weather.
With a pang I remember
spring and summer past.
August 13, 1854
To float on a stream
is like embarking on a
train of thought itself.
August 14, 1854
Silver strip of sky
the river is full of light
in the dark landscape.
An indistinct path
leading through a dense birch wood
quite out of our course.
August 15, 1854
Far in the southwest
the locomotive whistle
sounds like a bell.
August 15, 1854
One is upside down,
the shadow of our shadows
at steam-mill sand-bank.
August 16, 1854
How can that depth be
fathomed where a man may see
himself reflected?
This sense of lateness.
Now is the season of fruits
but where is our fruit?
August 18, 1853
This haze, we see no
further than our Annursnack,
blue as a mountain.
August 19, 1854
I cannot account
for this peculiar smoothness
of the dimpled stream.
August 20, 1853
When the red-eye ceases
the woodland quire is dissolved.
The concert is over.
August 20, 1854
Bees on goldenrods
improve their time before the
sun of the year sets.
August 21, 1852
I hear muttering
of thunder as the first drops
dimple the river.
August 22, 1853
Now begins the year's
dark green early afternoon
when shadows increase.
The blackness of the
foliage between me and
the light reminds me
foliage between me and
the light reminds me
it begins in spring
the dewy dawn of the year
silver downiness
the saffron-robed morn
a yellowish or light green–
then pure glossy green
undersides reflect
the light – the forenoon
and now early afternoon
the dark green shadows
begin to increase and next
it will turn yellow
or red the sunset
finally black when the night
of the year sets in . . .
Now begins the year's
dark green early afternoon
when shadows increase.
Crimson undersides
of the great white lily pads,
turned up by the wind.
August 24, 1854
A cheering fall rain
brings a different mood or
season of the mind.
August 25, 1852
The sun, round and red,
is soon completely concealed
by the haze alone.
August 25, 1854
All bushes resound.
I wade up to my ears in the
alder locust song.
August 26, 1860
Cooler nights of late,
the heat of the sun by day
local, palpable.
August 27, 1860
The sky overcast.
A sudden vivid green blaze
of reflected light.
August 28, 1860
Rain-storm in the night.
The first leaves begin to fall,
blown off by the wind.
August 29, 1852
When the flower’s fall
is symbol of my own change
the flower appears.
August 30, 1851
Now after the rain,
bright, fresh green on fields and trees–
sense of summer past.
August 31, 1852
“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
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. August Days
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
