Closing up the year's accounts.

August 30.

I can be said to note the flower's fall only when I see in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the flower appears to me.


I perceive in the Norway cinquefoil (Potentilla Norvegica), now nearly out of blossom, that the alternate five leaves of the calyx are closing over the seeds to protect them.  

 This evidence of forethought, this simple reflection in a double sense of the term, in this flower, is affecting to me, as if it said to me:

 "Even I am doing my appointed work in this world faithfully. Not even do I  however obscurely I may grow among the other loftier and more famous plants, shirk my work, humble weed as I am . Not even when I have blossomed, and have lost my painted petals and am preparing to die down to my root, do I forget to fall with my arms around my babe, faithful to the last, that the infant may be found preserved in the arms of the frozen mother." 

That thus all the Norway cinquefoils in the world had curled back their calyx leaves, their warm cloaks, when now their flowering season was past, over their progeny, from the time they were created! There is one door closed, of the closing year.

Nature ordered this bending back of the calyx leaves, and every year since this plant was created her order has been faithfully obeyed, and this plant acts not an obscure but essential, part in the revolution of the seasons. 

I am not ashamed to be contemporary with the Norway cinquefoil . May I perform my part as well! 

There is so much done toward closing up the year's accounts. It is as good as if I saw the great globe go round. It is as if I saw the Janus doors of the year closing. The fall of each humblest flower marks the annual period of some phase of human life, experience. I can be said to note the flower's fall only when I see in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the flower appears to me. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 30, 1851

The fall of each humblest flower marks the annual period of some phase of human life, experience. I can be said to note the flower's fall only when I see in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the flower appears to me. See June 25, 1852.(" There is a flower for every mood of the mind."); May 23, 1853 . ("Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind. "); August 7, 1853. (" [The poet] sees a flower or other object, and it is beautiful or affecting to him because it is a symbol of his thought");August 26, 1858 ("Each humblest plant, or weed, as we call it, stands there to express some thought or mood of ours. ")

The alternate five leaves of the calyx are closing over the seeds to protect them. See December 31, 1859 ("Potentilla Norvegica appears to have some sound seed in its closed heads.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Cinquefoil in Autumn

Each humblest flower

marks some phase of human life

as the globe goes round.

When the flower’s fall

is symbol of my own change

the flower appears.

The wind roars like the surf.

August 26. 

A cool and even piercing wind blows to-day, making all shrubs to bow and trees to wave; such as we could not have had in July. I speak not of its coolness but its strength and steadiness. The wind and the coldness increase as the day advances, and I am compelled to put on an extra coat for my walk. 

The wind roars amid the pines like the surf. You can hardly hear the crickets for the din, or the cars. Indeed it is difficult to enjoy a quiet thought. Such a blowing, stirring, bustling day, - what does it mean ? 

Such a blowing day is no doubt indispensable in the economy of nature.   All light things decamp; straws and loose leaves change their places. The ground is strewn with windfalls, and much fruit will consequently be lost. 

The whole country is a sea-shore, and the wind is the surf that breaks on it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 26, 1851


The ground is strewn with windfalls, and much fruit will consequently be lost. See August 29, 1852 ("The ground in orchards is covered with windfalls; imperfect fruits now fall. "); August 21, 1856 ("Rains still all day, and wind rises, and shakes off much fruit and beats down the corn.");  September 3, 1859 ("A strong wind, which blows down much fruit. R. W. E. sits surrounded by choice windfall pears.")

Botanizing

August 25.

What the little regular, rounded, light-blue flower in Heywood Brook? Also the small purplish flower growing on the mud in Hubbard's meadow, with one pistil? What the bean vine in the garden?


Checkerberry in bloom. 

Blueeyed grass still. 

Rhus copallina, mountain or dwarf sumach . I now know all of the Rhus genus in Bigelow. We have all but the staghorn in Concord.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 25, 1851

Checkerberry in bloom...   "Checkerberry" is another name for American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). See Checkerberry cum Wintergreen. But HDT calls Chimaphila umbellata,  a/k/a pipsissewa,  “wintergreen.” See July 3, 1852  ("The Chimaphila umbellata, wintergreen, must have been in blossom some time.”);  November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”) See also November 19, 1850 ("Now that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen, it begins to appear what is evergreen  the partridge-berry and checkerberry, and winter-green leaves even, are more conspicuous.”)

The progress of the blue vervain. The history of hawkweed.

August 21

Bigelow, speaking of the spikes of the blue vervain (Verbena hastata), says, “The flowering commences at their base and is long in reaching their summit.” 

I perceive that only one circle of buds, about half a dozen, blossoms at a time, -- and there are about thirty circles in the space of three inches -- while the next circle of buds above at the same time shows the blue. Thus this triumphant blossoming circle travels upward, driving the remaining buds off into space. I think it was the 16th of July when I first noticed them (on another plant), and now they are all within about half an inch of the top of the spikes. 

Yet the blossoms have got no nearer the top on long spikes, which had many buds, than on short ones only an inch long. Perhaps the blossoming commenced enough earlier on the long ones to make up for the difference in length. 

Blue vervain (Verbena hastata)

It is very pleasant to measure the progress of the season by this and similar clocks. So you get, not the absolute time, but the true time of the season.


The prevailing conspicuous flowers at present are:

•  The early goldenrods,
•  tansy,
•  the life-everlastings,
•  flea bane (though not for its flower),
•  yarrow (rather dry),
•  hardhack and meadow-sweet (both getting dry, also mayweed),
•  Eupatorium purpureum,
•  scabish,
•  clethra (really a fine, sweet-scented, and this year particularly fair and fresh, flower, some unexpanded buds at top tinged with red),
•  Rhexia Virginica,
•  thoroughwort,
•  Polygala sanguinea,
•  prunella, and dog’s-bane (getting stale), etc., etc.

Touch-me-not (less observed), Canada snap dragon by roadside (not conspicuous).

The purple gerardia now, horsemint, or Mentha borealis, Veronica scutellata (marsh speedwell), Ranunculus acris (tall crow foot) still.

Mowing to some extent improves the landscape to the eye of the walker. The aftermath, so fresh and green, begins now to recall the spring to my mind. In some fields fresh clover heads appear.

There is some advantage, intellectually and spiritually, in taking wide views with the bodily eye and not pursuing an occupation which holds the body prone. There is some advantage, perhaps, in attending to the general features of the landscape over studying the particular plants and animals which inhabit it. 

A man may walk abroad and no more see the sky than if he walked under a shed. The poet is more in the air than the naturalist, though they may walk side by side. Granted that you are out-of-doors; but what if the outer door is open, if the inner door is shut! 

You must walk sometimes perfectly free, not prying nor inquisitive, not bent upon seeing things. Throw away a whole day for a single expansion, a single inspiration of air.

It is remarkable that animals are often obviously, manifestly, related to the plants which they feed upon or live among, - as caterpillars, butterflies, tree-toads, partridges, chewinks, - and this afternoon I noticed a yellow spider on a goldenrod; as if every condition might have its expression in some form of animated being.

Spear-leaved goldenrod in path to northeast of Flint's Pond.

Hieracium paniculatum, a very delicate and slender hawkweed. I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. 

They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 21, 1851

Bigelow. See December 4, 1856 ("My first botany, as I remember, was Bigelow's "Plants of Boston and Vicinity," which I began to use about twenty years ago".)

It is very pleasant to measure the progress of the season by this and similar clocks. See. August 6, 1852 (" Blue vervain is now very attractive to me, and then there is that interesting progressive history in its rising ring of blossoms. It has a story");  August 20, 1851 ("The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly reached the summit of their spikes."); August 22, 1859 ("The circles of the blue vervain flowers, now risen near to the top, show how far advanced the season is") see also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau,  the Blue Vervain

The prevailing conspicuous flowers at present.  See August 21, 1852 ("There are as few or fewer birds heard than flowers seen. The sound of the crickets gradually prevails more and more. I hear the year falling asleep.")

There is some advantage, perhaps, in attending to the general features of the landscape over studying the particular plants and animals which inhabit it. See March 5, 1852 ("The habit of looking at things microscopically, as the lichens on the trees and rocks, really prevents my seeing aught else in a walk")

A man may walk abroad and no more see the sky than if he walked under a shed. See September 13, 1859 ("There are various degrees of living out-of-doors. You must be outdoors long, early and late, and travel far and earnestly, in order to perceive the phenomena of the day. Even then much will escape you. Few live so far outdoors as to hear the first geese go over.")

You must walk sometimes perfectly free, not prying nor inquisitive, not bent upon seeing things. See August 5, 1851 ("The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”); November 18 1851 ("The chopper who works in the woods all day is more open in some respects to the impressions they are fitted to make than the naturalist who goes to see them. He really forgets himself, forgets to observe, and at night he dreams of the swamp, its phenomena and events. Not so the naturalist; enough of his unconscious life does not pass there. A man can hardly be said to be there if he knows that he is there, or to go there if he knows where he is going. The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work."); March 23, 1853 ("Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye"); June 14, 1853 (" that favorable frame of mind described by De Quincey, open to great impressions, and you see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before.”); September 13, 1852 ("I must walk more with free senses. I must let my senses wander as my thoughts, my eyes see without looking. Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe. Be not preoccupied with looking. Go not to the object; let it come to you. What I need is not to look at all, but a true sauntering of the eye.")

It is remarkable that animals are often obviously, manifestly, related to the plants which they feed upon or live among. See August 22, 1852 ("Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.")

The aftermath, so fresh and green, begins now to recall the spring to my mind. See  July 24, 1852 ("There is a short, fresh green on the shorn fields, the aftermath. When the first crop of grass is off, and the aftermath springs, the year has passed its culmination."); July 24, 1860 ("Many a field where the grass has been cut shows now a fresh and very lit-up light green as you look toward the sun."); July 28, 1852 ("There is a yellowish light now from a low, tufted, yellowish, broad-leaved grass, in fields that have been mown."); August 4, 1853 ("The low fields which have been mown now look very green again in consequence of the rain, as if it were a second spring.) August 7, 1852 ("At this season we have gentle rain-storms, making the aftermath green . . . as if it were a second spring ."); August 10, 1854 ("As I go along the railroad, I observe the darker green of early-mown fields. "); August 17, 1858 ("The aftermath on early mown fields is a very beautiful green. ");  August 20, 1858  ("In some meadows, as I look southwesterly, the aftermath looks a bright yellowish-green in patches.")

August 21,  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 21

The progress of the

blue vervain measures the true

time of the season.

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 dispersion of seeds

August 9

The OEnothera biennis along the railroad now. Do the cars disperse seeds?

The Trichostema dichotomum is quite beautiful now in the cool of the morning. 

The epilobium in the woods still. 

Now the earliest apples begin to be ripe, but none are so good to eat as some to smell. Some knurly apple which I pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 9, 1851

August 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 9

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

.

Shelter from a storm

August 9.

August 9, 2015
At a little distance we should see all the colors.

Tansy now in bloom and the fresh white clethra.

The Trichostema dichotomum is quite beautiful now in the cool of the morning.

The epilobium in the woods still.

Now the earliest apples begin to be ripe, but none are so good to eat as some to smell.

Among the pines and birches I hear the invisible locust.

As I am going to the pond to bathe, I see a black cloud in the northern horizon and hear the muttering of thunder, and make haste. Before I have bathed and dressed, the gusts which precede the tempest are heard roaring in the woods, and the first black, gusty clouds have reached my zenith. Hastening toward town, I meet the rain at the edge of the wood, and take refuge under the thickest leaves, where not a drop reaches me, and, at the end of half an hour, the renewed singing of the birds alone advertises me that the rain has ceased, and it is only the dripping from the leaves which I hear in the woods.

It is a splendid sunset, a celestial light on all the land, so that all people come to their doors and windows to look on the grass and leaves and buildings and the sky, as the sun’s rays shine through the cloud and the falling rain we are, in fact, in a rainbow. At a little distance we should see all the colors.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 9, 1851

The renewed singing of the birds alone advertises me that the rain has ceased, and it is only the dripping from the leaves which I hear in the woods.  See March 21, 1858 ("This first spring rain is very agreeable. I love to hear the pattering of the drops on my umbrella, and I love also the wet scent of the umbrella. ")April 4, 1853 ("A warm, dripping rain, heard on one's umbrella as on a snug roof, and on the leaves without, suggests comfort . . .We never feel so comfortable as when we are abroad in a storm . . .Our comfort is positive then. We are all compact, and our thoughts collected. We walk under the clouds and mists as under a roof."); July 17, 1852 ("This weather is rather favorable to thought. On all sides is heard a gentle dripping of the rain on the leaves, yet it is perfectly warm."); The dripping trees and wet falling ice will wet you through like rain in the woods. December 6, 1858 ("It is a lively sound, a busy tinkling, the incessant brattling and from time to time rushing, crashing sound of this falling ice, and trees suddenly erecting themselves when relieved of their loads. . . .Looking at a dripping tree between you and the sun, you may see here or there one or another rainbow color, a small brilliant point of light.")

We are, in fact, in a rainbow. See August 7, 1852 ("Sometimes we are completely within it, enveloped by it, and experience the realization of the child's wish")

Aug. 9. Saturday. Tansy now in bloom and the fresh white clethra. Among the pines and birches I hear the invisible locust. As I am going to the pond to bathe, I see a black cloud in the northern horizon and hear the muttering of thunder, and make haste. Before I have bathed and dressed, the gusts which precede the tempest are heard roaring in the woods, and the first black, gusty clouds have reached my zenith. Hastening toward town, I meet the rain at the edge of the wood, and take refuge under the thickest leaves, where not a drop reaches me, and, at the end of half an hour, the renewed singing of the birds alone advertises me that the rain has ceased, and it is only the dripping from the leaves which I hear in the woods.

It was a splendid sunset that day, a celestial light on all the land, so that all people went to their doors and windows to look on the grass and leaves and buildings and the sky, and it was equally glorious in whatever quarter you looked; a sort of fulgor as of stereotyped lightning filled the air. Of which this is my solution. We were in the westernmost edge of the shower at the moment the sun was setting, and its rays shone through the cloud and the falling rain. We were, in fact, in a rainbow and it was here its arch rested on the earth. At a little distance we should have seen all the colors.

 The Enothera biennis along the railroad now. Do the cars disperse seeds ? The Trichostema dichotomum is quite beautiful now in the cool of the morning. The epilobium in the woods still. Now the earliest apples begin to be ripe, but none are so good to eat as some to smell. Some knurly apple which I pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona.

August 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 9

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

To Conantum in moonlight.

August 8.

7.30 P.M. The light from the western sky is stronger still than that of the moon, which has not yet quite filled her horns. When I hold up my hand, the west side is lighted while the side toward the moon is comparatively dark.

But now that I have put this dark wood (Hubbard's) between me and the west, I see the moonlight plainly on my paper; I am even startled by it. One star, too, - is it Venus ? - I see in the west. Starlight! that would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise.

I hear the clock striking eight faintly. I smell the late shorn meadows. And now I strike the road at the causeway. It is hard, and I hear the sound of my steps. The fireflies are not so numerous as they have been. There is no dew as yet.

The planks and railing of Hubbard's Bridge are removed. I walk over on the string-pieces, resting in the middle until the moon comes out of a cloud, that I may see my path, for between the next piers the string pieces also are removed and there is only a rather narrow plank, let down three or four feet. I essay to cross it, but it springs a little and I mistrust myself, whether I shall not plunge into the river. I put out my foot, but I am checked, as if some power had laid a hand on my breast and chilled me back. Nevertheless, I cross, stopping at first, and gain the other side.

On Conantum I sit awhile in the shade of the woods and look out on the moonlit fields. The air is warmer than the rocks now. It is perfectly warm and I am tempted to stay out all night and observe each phenomenon of the night until day dawns. I could lie out here on this pinnacle rock all night without cold.

To lie here on your back with nothing between your eye and the stars, - nothing but space, - they your nearest neighbors on that side, who could ever go to sleep under these circumstances ?

I hear the nine o'clock bell ringing in Bedford. Pleasantly sounds the voice of one village to another. Since I sat here a bright star has gone behind the stem of a tree, proving that my machine is moving, - proving it better for me than a rotating pendulum. I hear a solitary whip-poor-will, and a bullfrog on the river, - fewer sounds than in spring. The gray cliffs across the river are plain to be seen.

And now the star appears on the other side of the tree, and I must go. The woods and the separate trees cast longer shadows than by day, for the moon goes lower in her course at this season.

Some dew at last in the meadow. As I recross the string-pieces of the bridge, I see the water-bugs swimming briskly in the moonlight and scent the Roman wormwood in the potato fields.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 8, 1851

I put out my foot, but I am checked, as if some power had laid a hand on my breast and chilled me back. See December 11, 1855 (“My body is all sentient.”); August 8, 1852 ("[I]am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another.")

  

The air is warmer than the rocks now. See May 16, 1851(“ Lay on a rock near a meadow, which had absorbed and retained much heat, so that I could warm my back on it, it being a cold night.”);June 11, 1851 (“The rocks do not feel warm to-night, for the air is warmest; ”);  July 16, 1850 (“The rocks retain the warmth of the sun.”); August 12, 1851 (“The sand is cool on the surface but warm two or three inches beneath, and the rocks are quite warm to the hand, so that he sits on them or leans against them for warmth.")

To lie here on your back with nothing between your eye and the stars, - nothing but space. See August 5, 1851 ("As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where. I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment and I see who the company are.")

August 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 8

 

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

Local knowledge

August 6

How often it happens that the traveller's principal distinction is that he is one who knows less about a country than a native! Now if he should begin with all the knowledge of a native, and add thereto the knowledge of a traveller, both natives and foreigners would be obliged to read his book; and the world would be absolutely benefited. 

It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate.

I am, perchance, most and most profitably interested in the things which I already know a little about;  I wish to get a clearer notion of what I have already some inkling.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1851


The traveller's principal distinction is that he is one who knows less about a country than a native! ... See August 20, 1851 ("A traveller who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. ") April 16, 1852 ("Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs.")

It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country. See September 7, 1851 ("The discoveries which we make abroad are special and particular; those which we make at home are general and significant. The further off, the nearer the surface. The nearer home, the deeper.") See also Luke 4: 24 ("No prophet is accepted in his own country.")

The things which I already know a little about. See January 5, 1860 ("A man receives only what he is ready to receive. His observations make a chain. He does not observe the phenomenon that cannot be linked with the rest which he has observed, however novel and remarkable it may be. A man tracks himself through life, apprehending only what he already half knows.”); November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it.”).

August 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 6

 

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

Wild fruit

August 6.

The smooth sumach shows its red fruit. The berries of the bristly aralia are turning dark. The wild holly's scarlet fruit is seen and the red cherry (Cerasus).

After how few steps, how little exertion, the student stands in pine woods above the Solomon's-seal and the cow-wheat, in a place still unaccountably strange and wild to him, and to all civilization! This so easy and so common, though our literature implies that it is rare!

We in the country make no report of the seals and sharks in our neighborhood to those in the city. We send them only our huckleberries, not free wild thoughts.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1851

August 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 6

 

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

Moon half full.

August 5. 

7:30 - I sit beside Hubbard's Grove. A few level red bars above the horizon; a dark, irregular bank beneath them, with a streak of red lay below, on the horizon's edge.

When the moon is on the increase and half full, it is already in mid-heavens at sunset, so that there is no marked twilight intervening.

It is 8 o'clock. The air is still. I hear the voices of loud-talking boys in the early twilight, it must be a mile off. The swallows go over with a watery twittering. I hear the whip-poor-will at a distance.

It is almost dark. I distinguish the modest moonlight on my paper.  

Moonlight is like a cup of cold water to a thirsty man. As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where. I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment and I see who the company are.

With the coolness and the mild silvery light, I recover some sanity, my thoughts are more distinct, moderated, and tempered. Reflection is more possible.  I am sobered by the moonlight. I bethink myself.

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 5, 1851

The question is not what you look at, but what you see. See September 13, 1852 ("Be not preoccupied with looking. Go not to the object; let it come to you. . . .”); Compare July 2 1857 (“Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because . . . we are not looking for it. So, in the largest sense, we find only the world we look for.”)

I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where . . . See August 8, 1852 ("I. . . am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another.")


As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where; as my walls contract, I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment and I see who the company are. With the coolness and the mild silvery light, I recover some sanity, my thoughts are more distinct, moderated, and tempered. Reflection is more possible while the day goes by. The intense light of the sun unfits me for meditation, makes me wander in my thought; my life is too diffuse and dissipated; routine succeeds and prevails over us; the trivial has greater power then, and most at noonday, the most trivial hour of the twenty-four. I am sobered by the moonlight. I bethink myself. It is like a cup of cold water to a thirsty man. The moonlight is more favorable to meditation than sunlight. The sun lights this world from without, shines in at a window, but the moon is like a lamp within an apartment. It shines for us. The stars themselves make a more visible, and hence a nearer and more domestic, roof at night. Nature broods us, and has not left our germs of thought to be hatched by the sun. We feel her heat and see her body darkening over us. Our thoughts are not dissipated, but come back to us like an echo. The different kinds of moonlight are infinite. This is not a night for contrasts of light and shade, but a faint diffused light in which there is light enough to travel, and that is all.

Ah, what a poor, dry compilation is the "Annual of Scientific Discovery !" I trust that observations are made during the year which are not chronicled there, — that some mortal may have caught a glimpse of Nature in some corner of the earth during the year 1851. One sentence of perennial poetry would make me forget, would atone for, volumes of mere science. The astronomer is as blind to the significant phenomena, or the significance of phenomena, as the wood-sawyer who wears glasses to defend his eyes from sawdust. The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

I hear now from Bear Garden Hill — I rarely walk by moonlight without hearing — the sound of a flute, or a horn, or a human voice. It is a performer I never see by day; should not recognize him if pointed out; but you may hear his performance in every horizon. He plays but one strain and goes to bed early, but I know by the character of that single strain that he is deeply dissatisfied with the manner in which he spends his day. He is a slave who is purchasing his freedom. He is Apollo watching the flocks of Admetus on every hill, and this strain he plays every evening to remind him of his heavenly descent. It is all that saves him, — his one redeeming trait. It is a reminiscence ; he loves to remember his youth. He is sprung of a noble family. He is highly related, I have no doubt; was tenderly nurtured in his infancy, poor hind as he is. That noble strain he utters, instead of any jewel on his finger, or precious locket fastened to his breast, or purple garments that came with him. The elements recognize him, and echo his strain. All the dogs know him their master, though lords and ladies, rich men and learned, know him not. He is the son of a rich man, of a famous man who served his country well. He has heard his sire's stories. I thought of the time when he would discover his parent age, obtain his inheritance and sing a strain suited to the morning hour. He cherishes hopes. I never see the man by day who plays that clarionet.

The distant lamps in the farmhouse look like fires. The trees and clouds are seen at a distance reflected in the river as by day. I see Fair Haven Pond from the Cliffs, as it were through a slight mist. It is the wildest scenery imaginable, — a Lake of the Woods. I just remembered the wildness of St. Anne's. That's the Ultima Thule of wildness to me.

 What an entertainment for the traveller, this incessant motion apparently of the moon traversing the clouds! Whether you sit or stand, it is always preparing new developments for you. It is event enough for simple minds. You all alone, the moon all alone, overcoming with incessant victory whole squadrons of clouds above the forests and the lakes and rivers and the mountains. You cannot always calculate which one the moon will undertake next.

 I see a solitary firefly over the woods.

The moon wading through clouds; though she is eclipsed by this one, I see her shining on a more distant but lower one. The entrance into Hubbard's Wood above the spring, coming from the hill, is like the entrance to a cave; but when you are within, there are some streaks of light on the edge of the path.

All these leaves so still, none whispering, no birds in motion, — how can I be else than still and thoughtful?

The royal month of August

August 4

Now the hardback and meadow-sweet reign. 

The mayweed, too, dusty by the roadside, and in the fields I scent the sweet-scented life-everlasting, which is half expanded. 

The yellow Bethlehem-star still, and the yellow gerardia, and a bluish "savory-leaved aster."

The grass is withered by the drought. The potatoes begin generally to flat down. The corn is tasselled out, turnips growing in its midst. The farmer with his barns and cattle and poultry and grain and grass. The smell of his hay.

As my eye rests on the blossom of the meadow-sweet in a hedge, I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn. Was it sound? or was it form? or was it scent? or was it flavor? 

It is now the royal month of August. When I hear this sound I am as dry as the rye which is everywhere cut and housed, though I am drunk with the season's wine. 

The farmer is the most inoffensive of men, with his barns and cattle and poultry and grain and grass. I like the smell of his hay well enough, though as grass it may be in my way. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 4, 1851

In the fields I scent the sweet-scented life-everlasting, which is half expanded. See August 4, 1852 ("I smell the fragrant life-everlasting, now almost out; another scent that reminds me of the autumn.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aromatic Herbs

The yellow Bethlehem-star still. See June 15, 1851 ("The Hypoxis erecta, yellow Bethlehem-star, where there is a thick, wiry grass in open path; should be called yellow-eyed grass, methinks. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Bethlehem-star

The corn is tasselled out. See July 12, 1851 ("The earliest corn is beginning to show its tassels now, and I scent it as I walk, — its peculiar dry scent.");  July 27, 1852 ("I now perceive the peculiar scent of the corn-fields.")

A bluish"savory-leaved aster. See July 29, 1852 ("That common rigid narrow-leaved faint-purplish aster in dry woods by shrub oak path, Aster linariifolius of Bigelow, but it is not savory leaved. I do not find it in Gray."); December 26, 1855 (“Weeds in the fields and the wood-paths are the most interesting. Here are asters, savory-leaved, whose flat imbricated calyxes, three quarters of an inch over, are surmounted and inclosed in a perfectly transparent icebutton, like a glass knob, through which you see the reflections of the brown calyx.”); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Savory-leaved aster

My eye rests on the blossom of the meadow-sweet. See June 20, 1853 ("Meadow-sweet out, probably yesterday. It is an agreeable, unpretending flower."); July 11, 1851 ("The meadow-sweet has bloomed")

It is now the royal month of August. See August 18, 1852 ("There is indeed something royal about the month of August"); August 10, 1853 ("August, royal and rich")

I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn. See  August 4, 1852 ("Have had a gentle rain . . . but still I hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall. ");   See also  August 3, 1852 (" I hear a cricket creak in the shade; also the sound of a distant piano."); August 18, 1856 ("  I hear the steady (not intermittent) shrilling of apparently the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound. Hear it, but see it not. It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy.")  and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

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

I hear a cricket

and am penetrated with 

the sense of autumn. 

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