The last wave of winter whirls in from the north

May 8. 

May 8, 2017

I am most impressed by the rapidity of the changes within a week.

Saw a load of rock maples on a car from the country. Their buds have not yet started, while ours are leaved out. They must have been brought from the northern part of Vermont, where is winter still.

A tree, with all its roots, which has not felt the influence of spring is a most startling evidence of winter, – of the magic worked by the railroad. 

The young sugar maples in our streets are now green with young leaves.  These trees from the north are whirled into their midst from a region of ice and snow, with not a bud yet started, at least a fortnight or three weeks more backward, not fairly awaked from their winter's sleep.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 8, 1852

They must have been brought from the northern part of Vermont. See November 18, 1852 ("Measured a stick of round timber, probably white pine, on the cars this afternoon, . . . From Vermont.”); See also November 13, 1851 ("The cattle-train came down last night from Vermont with snow nearly a foot thick upon it. . . .So it snows. Such, some years, may be our first snow.”); February 21, 1855 ("I see a train go by . . .from somewhere up country. . . thickly and evenly crusted with unspotted snow,. . . It affected me as when a traveller comes into the house with snow on his coat, when I did not know it was snowing.")

Trees from the north are whirled into their midst from a region of ice and snow. Compare May 7, 1852 ("The first wave of summer from the south.")

Rock maples brought from

the northern part of Vermont –

where is winter still.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The last wave of winter whirls in from the north

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

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