Unexpected snow.

October 27. 

This morning I wake and find it snowing and the ground covered with snow, quite unexpectedly, for last night it was rainy but not cold. 

The strong northwest wind blows the damp snow along almost horizontally. 

The birds fly about as if seeking shelter. The cold numbs my fingers. 

Winter, with its inwardness, is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 27, 1851

Last night it was rainy but not cold. The strong northwest wind blows See October 27, 1855 ("The wind comes cold from the northwest, as if there were snow on the earth in that direction."); October 27, 1857 ("In this probably annual northeast storm . . . the summer winds up its accounts.")

The birds fly about as if seeking shelter. See June 19, 1854 ("Suddenly comes the gust, and the big drops slanting from the north, and the birds fly as if rudderless, and the trees bow and are wrenched. It rains against the windows like hail and is blown over the roofs like steam or smoke.")

Winter is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think. See October 15, 1852 ("The ground begins to whiten, and our thoughts begin to prepare for winter."); December 8, 1850 ( "The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!") See also January 27, 1858 ("Sit long at a time, still, and have your thoughts. . .You can not go home yet; you stay and sit in the rain. ")

October morning

I wake and find it snowing

unexpectedly

The strong northwest 

wind blows the damp snow along 

horizontally.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Unexpected snow.

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-511027

***

This morning I wake and find it snowing and the ground covered with snow; quite unexpectedly, for last night it was rainy but not cold.

The obstacles which the heart meets with are like granite blocks which one alone cannot move. She who was as the morning light to me is now neither the morning star nor the evening star. We meet but to find each other further asunder, and the oftener we meet the more rapid our divergence. So a star of the first magnitude pales in the heavens, not from any fault in the observer's eye nor from any fault in itself, perchance, but because its progress in its own system has put a greater distance between.

The night is oracular. What have been the intimations of the night? I ask. How have you passed the night ? Good-night ! My friend will be bold to conjecture; he will guess bravely at the significance of my words.

The cold numbs my fingers this morning. The strong northwest wind blows the damp snow along almost horizontally. The birds fly about as if seeking shelter.

Perhaps it was the young of the purple finch that I saw sliding down the grass stems some weeks ago; or was it the white-throated finch?

Winter, with its inwardness, is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think.

The Ardea minor still with us. Saw a woodcock  feeding, probing the mud with its long bill, under the railroad bridge within two feet of me for a long time. Could not scare it far away. What a disproportionate length of bill! It is a sort of badge they [wear] as a punishment for greediness in a former state.

The highest arch of the stone bridge is six feet eight inches above the present surface of the water, which I should think was more than a foot higher than it has been this summer, and is four inches below the long stone in the east abutment.

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Obstacles of the Heart. See also Farewell, my friend