Why so many asters and goldenrods now?

August 30.

August 30, 2013

The Solidago odora grows abundantly behind the Minott house in Lincoln. I collect a large bundle of it. 


Grapes are already ripe; I smell them first. 

As I go along from the Minott house to the Bidens Brook, I am quite bewildered by the beauty and variety of the asters, now in their prime here. 

Why so many asters and goldenrods now? The sun has shone on the earth, and the goldenrod is his fruit. The stars, too, have shone on it, and the asters are their fruit.

I find at this time in fruit: (1) Polypodium vulgare,(2) Struthiopteris Germanica (ostrich fern), (3) Pteris aquilina (common brake) (have not looked for fruit), (4) Adiantum pedatum (have not looked for fruit), (5) Asplenium Trichomanes (dwarf spleenwort), also (6) A. ebeneum (ebony spleenwort), (7) Dicksonia punctilobula, (8) Dryopteris marginalis (marginal shield fern), (9) Polystichum acrostichoides ( terminal shield fern ) , (10) Onoclea sensibilis (?) (sensitive fern) (think I saw the fruit August 12th at Bittern Cliff), (11) Lygodium palmatum ( probably still in fruit , was when I last saw it), (12) Osmunda spectabilis (flowering fern) (out of fruit), (13) Osmunda cinnamomea (?) (tall osmunda  (also out of fruit). 

Nos. 1, 5, 6, and 8 common at Lee's Cliff. No. 2 behind Trillium Woods.  4 at Miles Swamp.  9 at Brister's Hill. 

maidenhair speenwort growing in sharp cliff-side angles

(March 2022, September 2024)

The dwarf spleenwort grows in the sharp angles of the rocks in the side of Lee's Cliff, its small fronds spreading in curved rays, its matted roots coming away in triangular masses, moulded by the rock. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 30, 1853

The dwarf spleenwort [maidenhair spleenwort]grows in the sharp angles of the rocks in the side of Lee's Cliff, its small fronds spreading in curved rays . . . The ebony spleenwort stands upright against the rocks. See July 17, 1857 (“I find to-day, at Bittern Cliff and at Lee's, Asplenium ebeneum (the larger), apparently nearly in prime, and A. Trichomanes, apparently just begun. This very commonly occurs in tufts at the base of the last, like radical leaves to it.”); November 17, 1858 (“As for the evergreen ferns, I see now . . . Asplenium trichomanes. A. ebeneum . . . ”); November 18, 1858 ("I go along under the east side of Lee's Cliff , looking at the evergreen ferns  . . . How pretty the smallest asplenium sometimes, in a recess under a shelving rock, as it were pinned on rosettewise, as if it were the head of a breastpin.")

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort

The fall dandelion in Tuttle's meadow.

August 26. 

The fall dandelion is as conspicuous and abundant now in Tuttle's meadow as buttercups in the spring. It takes their place. 

Saw the comet in the west to-night.

H. D. Thoreau, August 26, 1853

The fall dandelion is as conspicuous and abundant now August 4. 1854 ("The autumnal dandelion is now more common ");. August 24, 1852("Autumnal dandelions are more common now."); September 1, 1859 ("The autumnal dandelion is a prevailing flower now"); September 2, 1854("The autumnal dandelion is conspicuous on the shore."); September 13, 1856 (" Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime . . . A cool, spring-suggesting yellow. They reserve their force till this season.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion

Now begins the year's dark green early afternoon (The seasons of the day, the year . . . a life.)

August 23

August 23, 2013

Observing the blackness of the foliage, especially between me and the light, I am reminded that it begins in the spring, the dewy dawn of the year, with a silvery hoary downiness, changing to a yellowish or light green, — the saffron-robed morn, — then to a pure, spotless, glossy green with light under sides reflecting the light, — the forenoon, — and now the dark green, or early afternoon, when shadows begin to increase, and next it will turn yellow or red, — the sunset sky, — and finally sere brown and black, when the night of the year sets in.

I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day — say an August day — and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year. Perhaps after middle age man ceases to be interested in the morning and in the spring.

Poke stems are now ripe. I walked through a beautiful grove of them, six or seven feet high, on the side of Lee's Cliff, where they have ripened early. Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn. It excites me to behold it. What a success is its! What maturity it arrives at, ripening from leaf to root! 

May I mature as perfectly, root and branch, as the poke! It is a royal plant. I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet drink and botanical medicines. In August live on berries. Be blown on by all the winds. 

Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of Nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons. Grow green with spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Drink of each season's influence as a vial, a true panacea of all remedies mixed for your especial use. 

For all Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist her. "Nature" is but another name for health, and the seasons are but different states of health. 

Some men think that they are not well in spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter; it is only because they are not well in them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 23, 1853

The perfect correspondence of a day and the year. See August 19, 1853 (“The day is an epitome of the year.”)

Live in each season as it passes. See April 24 1859 (Find your eternity in each moment)

Seasons of life. See July 3, 1840 (We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves.); October 7, 1851 (There is a great difference between this season and a month ago, -- as between one period of your life and another); November 14, 1853. (October answers to that period in the life of man when he is no longer dependent on his transient moods, when all his experience ripens into wisdom, but every root, branch, leaf of him glows with maturity. What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit.); January 30, 1854 (We are not to suppose that there is no fruit left for winter to ripen. It is for man the seasons and all their fruits exist. The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of his brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. Then is the great harvest of the year, the harvest of thought. Now we burn with a purer flame like the stars…)

Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. See December 16, 1853 (Would you be well, see that you are attuned to each mood of nature); July 14, 1854 (Health is a sound relation to nature). See also Walden (" Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.").



The blackness of the
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.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The year's

dark green early afternoon

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-530823

Signs of Fall

August 23.

6 a.m. — To Nawshawtuct. A very clear but cool morning, all white light. The feverwort berries are yellowing and yellowed; bar berries have begun to redden, and the prinos, — some of the last quite red. August has been thus far dog-days, rain, oppressive sultry heat, and now beginning fall weather.

P. M. — Clematis Brook. By the side of the brook that comes out of Deacon Farrar's Swamp and runs under the causeway east of the Corner Bridge the great bidens flowers are all turned toward the westering sun like sun flowers, hieroglyphics of the seasons. I go there as to one of autumn's favorite haunts. Most poems, like the fruits, are sweetest toward the blossom end. 

The milkweed leaves are already yellowing. A solidago some time out, say a week, on side of Mt. Misery. Looking down the river valley now from Mt. Misery, an hour before sundown, I am struck with nothing so much as the autumnal coolness of the landscape and the predominance of shade.

H. D. Thoreau, August 23, 1853

The feverwort berries are yellowing and yellowed. See Septmeber 6, 1859 ("The feverwort berries are apparently nearly in their prime, of a clear "corn yellow " and as large as a small cranberry, in whorls at the axils of the leaves of the half- prostrate plants. ")
An hour before sundown. See  The hour before sunset.

Birding up Assabet to Yellow Rocket Shore.

August 22.

Monday. P. M. — A still afternoon with a prospect of a shower in the west. 

The immediate edge of the river is for the most part respected by the mowers, and many wild plants there escape from year to year, being too coarse for hay.  

I hear the muttering of thunder and the first drops dimple the river.

I hear but few notes of birds these days; no singing, but merely a few hurried notes or screams or twittering or peeping. I will enumerate such as I hear or see this still louring and showery afternoon. 

• A hurried anxious note from a robin. Heard perhaps half a dozen afterward. They flit now, accompanied by their young. 
• A sharp, loud che-wink from a ground-robin. 
• A goldfinch twitters over; several more heard afterward. 
• A blue jay screams, and one or two fly over, showing to advantage their handsome forms, especially their regular tails, wedge-formed. 
• Surprised to hear a very faint bobolink in the air; the link, link, once or twice later. 
• A yellow-bird flew over the river. 
• Swallows twittering, but flying high, — the chimney swallows and what I take to be the bank ditto.
• Scared up a green bittern from an oak by the riverside. 
• Hear a peawai whose note is more like singing — as if it were still incubating — than any other. 
• Some of the warble of the golden robin. 
• A kingfisher, with his white collar, darted across the river and alighted on an oak. 
• A peetweet flew along the shore and uttered its peculiar note. Their wings appear double as they fly by you, while their bill is cumberously carried pointing downward in front. 
• The chipping of a song sparrow occasionally heard amid the bushes. 
• A single duck scared up. 
• The scream of young marsh hawks sounds like some notes of the jay. 
• And two nighthawks flying high over the river. 
• At twilight many bats after the showers. 

These birds were heard or seen in the course of three or four hours on the river, but there were not sounds enough to disturb the general stillness.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal,  August 22, 1853

I hear the muttering of thunder and the first drops dimple the river. See August 9, 1851 ("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")

I hear but few notes of birds these days; no singing. See August 20, 1854 ("When the red-eye ceases generally, then I think is a crisis, — the woodland quire is dissolved. That, if I remember, was about a fortnight ago. The concert is over."); August 21, 1852 ("There are as few or fewer birds heard than flowers seen.”).

I hear muttering

of thunder and the first drops 

dimple the river.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

Near at hand it made my ears ache

August 21.

To Jenny Dugan's and Conantum. Saw one of those light-green locusts about three quarters of an inch long on a currant leaf in the garden. It kept up a steady shrilling (unlike the interrupted creak of the cricket), with its wings upright on its shoulders, all indistinct, they moved so fast. Near at hand it made my ears ache, it was so piercing, and was accompanied by a hum like that of a factory. The wings are transparent, with marks somewhat like a letter.

The Viburnum Lentago berries are but just beginning to redden on one cheek. The Cornus paniculata are fairly white in some places. The polygonatum berries have been a bluish-green some time. Do they turn still?

Methinks I have not heard a robin sing morning or evening of late, but the peawai still, and occasionally a short note from the gold robin.

H. D. Thoreau, August 21, 1853

Methinks I have not heard a robin sing . . . See August 21, 1852 ("There are as few or fewer birds heard than flowers seen.”).

Dawn, August 21, 2013

Toward the light.

August 20.

This day, too, has that autumnal character. I am struck by the clearness and stillness of the air, the brightness of the landscape, or, as it were, the reflection of light from the washed earth, the darkness and heaviness of the shade, as I look now up the river at the white maples and bushes, and the smoothness of the stream. 

If they are between you and the sun, the trees are more black than green. It must be owing to the clearness of the air since the rains, together with the multiplication of the leaves, whose effect has not been perceived during the mists of the dog-days.

But I cannot account for this peculiar smoothness of the dimpled stream — unless the air is stiller than before — nor for the peculiar brightness of the sun's reflection from its surface. 

I stand on the south bank, opposite the black willows, looking up the full stream, which, with a smooth, almost oily and sheeny surface, comes welling and dimpling onward, peculiarly smooth and bright now at 4 p.m., while the numerous trees seen up the stream — white maples, oaks, etc. — and the bushes look absolutely black in the clear, bright light.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 20, 1853 

The day is an epitome of the year.

August  19. 

As the rays of the sun fall horizontally across the placid pond, they light up the side of Baker's Pleasant Meadow Wood, which covers a hill. The different shades of green of different and the same trees, — alders, pines, birch, maple, oak, etc., — melting into one another on their rounded bosky edges, make a most glorious soft and harmonious picture, only to be seen at this season of the day and perhaps of the year. 

It is a beautiful green rug with lighter shadings and rounded figures like the outlines of trees and shrubs of different shades of green. In the case of a single tree there is the dark glossy green of the lower, older leaves, — the spring growth, — which hang down, fading on every side into the silvery hoariness of the younger and more downy leaves on the edges, — the fall growth, — whose under sides are seen, which stand up, and more perhaps at this hour. This is also the case with every bush along the river, — the larger glossy dark -green watery leaves beneath and in the recesses, the upright hoary leaves whose under sides are seen on the shoots which rise above. These lighter shades in the rug had the effect of watered silks, — the edges lit, the breasts dark-green, almost the cast on green crops seen by moon-light. I never saw a forest-side look more luxuriantly and at the same time freshly beautiful.

As toward the evening of the day the lakes and streams are smooth, so in the fall, the evening of the year, the waters are smoothed more perfectly than at any other season. The day is an epitome of the year.

The smaller, or green, bittern goes over. Now, while off Conantum, we have a cool, white, autumnal twilight, and as we pass the Hubbard Bridge, see the first stars.

H. D. Thoreau, August 19, 1853

 . . . only to be seen at this season of the day and perhaps of the year. See August 19, 1851 ("The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other.”); June 6, 1857 ("Each season is but an infinitesimal point.”); November 3, 1853 (“There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference. ”);April 24, 1859("There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season.")

As toward the evening of the day the lakes and streams are smooth, so in the fall, the evening of the year, the waters are smoothed more perfectly than at any other season. See October 17, 1858 ("One reason why I associate perfect reflections from still water with this and a later season may be that now, by the fall of the leaves, so much more light is let in to the water. The river reflects more light, therefore, in this twilight of the year, as it were an afterglow.")

The day is an epitome of the year. See August 23, 1853 ("I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day — say an August day — and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year.”); Walden, "Spring" ("The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer."); August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset.");August 15, 1853 ("an inky darkness as of night under the edge of the woods, now at noonday heralding the evening of the year.”); March 18, 1853 ("This the foreglow of the year, when the walker goes home at eve to dream of summer”); July 27, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!");  August 18, 1853 ("The night of the year is approaching.");

See also August 24, 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.”)

We have a cool, white, autumnal twilight, and as we pass the Hubbard Bridge, see the first stars. See August 28, 1853 ("A cool, white, autumnal evening.") ; August 30, 1856 ("A cold white horizon sky in the north, forerunner of the fall of the year."); September 11, 1854 ("This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost, the first in these respects decidedly autumnal evening.");September 29, 1854 ("This evening is quite cool and breezy, with a prolonged white twilight, quite Septemberish."); November 2, 1853 ("We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, the air being purer, — clear white light, which penetrates the woods.");  November 14, 1853 ("This [October] light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, ")

August 19. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, August 19

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

The first bright day of the fall, the earth reflector.

August  19. 

After more rain, with wind in the night, it is now clearing up cool. There is a broad, clear crescent of blue in the west, slowly increasing, and an agreeable autumnal coolness, both under the high, withdrawn clouds and the edges of the woods, and a considerable wind wafts us along with our one sail and two umbrellas, sitting in thick coats. The wind comes from the northwest and is bracing and encouraging, and we can now sail up the stream. 

Flocks of bobolinks go tinkling along about the low willows, and swallows twitter, and a kingbird hovers almost stationary in the air, a foot above the water. The sun comes out now about noon, when we are at Rice's, and the water sparkles in the clear air, and the pads reflect the sun. 

How clear and bright the air! The stems of trees at a distance are absolutely black and the densest shade.

The great Sudbury meadows, looking north, appear elevated. Every blade and leaf has been washed by the rains, and the landscape is indescribably bright. It is light without heat, Septemberish, as if reflected from the earth, such as is common in the fall. The surface of the meadows and the whole earth is like that of a great reflector to the sun, but reflecting his light more than his heat. 

It is a glorious and ever-memorable day. 

We observe attentively the first beautiful days in the spring, but not so much in the autumn. It is a day affecting the spirits of men, but there is nobody to enjoy it but ourselves. This day itself has been the great phenomenon, but will it be reported in any journal, as the storm is, and the heat? 

It is like a great and beautiful flower unnamed.

It is such a day as mankind might spend in praising and glorifying nature. It might be spent as a natural sabbath, if only all men would accept the hint. 

The first bright day of the fall, the earth reflector.

The dog-day mists are gone; the washed earth shines; the cooler air braces man. No summer day is so beautiful as the fairest spring and fall days.

H. D. Thoreau, August 19, 1853


The wind comes from the northwest and is bracing and encouraging, and we can now sail up the stream. See August 19, 1858 ("It is cool with a considerable northwesterly wind, so that we can sail to Fair Haven. The dog-day weather is suddenly gone")

A great and beautiful flower unnamed. See May 31, 1853 (The fact that a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw, perhaps never heard of, for which therefore there was no place in our thoughts may be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive.)

A glorious and ever-memorable day. See May 18, 1852 (The world can never be more beautiful than now.); May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today.")


The first bright day of the fall. See August 19, 1858 ("You may say it is the first day of autumn.")

August 19. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, August 19

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

The night of the year approaches.

August 18

Many leaves of the cultivated cherry are turned yellow, and a very few leaves of the elm have fallen, — the dead or prematurely ripe. 

The abundant and repeated rains since this month came in have made the last fortnight and more seem like a rainy season in the tropics, — warm, still copious rains falling straight down, contrasting with the cold, driving spring rains. Now again I am caught in a heavy shower in Moore's pitch pines on edge of Great Fields, and am obliged to stand crouching under my umbrella till the drops turn to streams, which find their way through my umbrella, and the path up the hillside is all afloat, a succession of puddles at different levels, each bounded by a ridge of dead pine-needles. 

What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill, and if we had not performed anything before, we should not now? The season of flowers or of promise may be said to be over, and now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit? The night of the year is approaching. What have we done with our talent? All nature prompts and reproves us. How early in the year it begins to be late! The sound of the crickets, even in the spring, makes our hearts beat with its awful reproof, while it encourages with its seasonable warning. It matters not by how little we have fallen behind; it seems irretrievably late. The year is full of warnings of its shortness, as is life. The sound of so many insects and the sight of so many flowers affect us so, — the creak of the cricket and the sight of the prunella and autumnal dandelion. They say, "For the night cometh in which no man may work."

H. D. Thoreau, August 18, 1853

What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill . . . See  August 18, 1856 ("It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, . . . so little brought to pass! "). See also . July 30 1852 (After midsummer we have a belated feeling as if we had all been idlers, and are forward to see in each sight and hear in each sound some presage of the fall, just as in middle age man anticipates the end of life.);

The night of the year is approaching. See August, 19, 1853 (" The day is an epitome of the year.")

The richest berry

August 17. 

Rain in forenoon.

The high blackberries are now in their prime; the richest berry we have.

That wild black currant by Union Turnpike ripe (in gardens some time ). 

The knapweed now conspicuous, like a small thistle. 
Did I set it down too early? 

Rain, rain, rain again! 

Good for grass and apples; said to be bad for potatoes, making them rot; makes the fruit now ripening decay, — apples, etc .

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

The richest berry we have. See August 10, 1853 ("August, royal and rich . . .It is glorious to see those great shining high blackberries, now partly ripe . . ."); August 22, 1852 ("Is not the high blackberry our finest berry?"); August 23, 1856 ("Now for high blackberries,")

An inky noonday darkness heralds the evening of the year.

August 15.

Rain again in the night, but now clear. It has been melting weather; hundreds sunstruck in New York. Sultry, mosquitoey nights, with both windows and door open, and scarcely a sheet to be endured. 

But now it is cooler and beautifully clear at last after all these rains, and the crickets chirp with a still more autumnal sound.

Instead of the late bluish mistiness, I see a distinct, dark shade under the edge of the woods, the effect of the luxuriant foliage seen through the clear air. It is a pleasure to look at the washed woods far away. You see every feature of the white pine grove with distinctness, -- the stems of the trees, then the dark shade, then their fresh sunlit outsides -- and an inky darkness as of night under the edge of the woods, now at noonday heralding the evening of the year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 15, 1853

. . .heralding the evening of the year. See August, 19, 1853 (" The day is an epitome of the year.")

After all these rains

 the crickets chirp with a still 

more autumnal sound.

Misty muggy musty dog-day mushrooms

August 14.

To Cliffs. I perceive the scent of the earliest ripe apples in my walk. How it surpasses all their flavors! When I come out on to the wet rock by the juniper, all green with moss and with the driving mists beneath me, — for the sun did not come out till seven, — it reminds me of mountain-tops which I have visited.

In the low woodland paths full of rank weeds, there are countless great fungi of various forms and colors, the produce of the warm rains and muggy weather of a week ago, now rapidly dissolving. The ground is covered with foul spots where they have dissolved, and for most of my walk the air is tainted with a musty, carrion like odor, in some places very offensive, so that I at first suspected a dead horse or cow. They impress me like humors or pimples on the face of the earth, toddy- blossoms, by which it gets rid of its corrupt blood. A sort of excrement they are.

It never occurred to me before to-day that those different forms belong to one species. Some I see just pushing up in the form of blunt cones, thrusting the leaves aside, and, further along, some which are perfectly flat on top, probably the same in full bloom, and others decaying and curved up into a basin at the edges.

This misty and musty dog-day weather has lasted now nearly a month. 

 Locust days, — sultry and sweltering. I hear them even till sunset. The usually invisible but far-heard locust. The toads probably ceased about the time I last spoke of them. Bullfrogs, also, I have not heard for a long time. I hear no wood thrushes for a week. The pea-wai still, and sometimes the golden robin. Methinks the reign of the milkweeds is over.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 14, 1853

I perceive the scent of the earliest ripe apples in my walk. See August 18, 1852 ("Ripe apples here and there scent the air.”); August 9, 1851 ("Now the earliest apples begin to be ripe, but none are so good to eat as some to smell.”)
 
This misty and musty dog-day weather has lasted now nearly a month. See August 14, 1852 ("There is such a haze that I cannot see the mountains.”); July 30, 1856 (“The atmosphere thick, mildewy, cloudy. It is difficult to dry anything. The sun is obscured, yet we expect no rain”)

August 14, 2013

Meditations under a bridge at midsummer.

August 13

August 13, 2022

The last was a melting night, and a carnival for mosquitoes.  

Could I not write meditations under a bridge at midsummer? 

Rowing home in haste before a black approaching storm from the northeast we paused under each bridge yesterday*— we who had been sweltering on the quiet waves — for the sake of a little shade and coolness, holding on by the piers with our hands. How grateful when, as I back through the bridges, the breeze of the storm blows through the piers, rippling the water and slightly cooling the sultry air! How fast the black cloud comes up and passes over my head.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 13, 1853

*To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.

Could I not write meditations under a bridge at midsummer? See May 30, 1857 (“Perhaps I could write meditations under a rock in a shower.”)

In haste before a black approaching storm. See August 9, 1851 (“I see a black cloud in the northern horizon and hear the muttering of thunder, and make haste.”)

August 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 13.

Rowing home in haste

before a black approaching 

storm from the northeast.

How fast the black cloud 

comes up and passes over.

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 © 2009-2023

 

tinyurl.com/HDT530813 

Now at last, methinks, the most melting season of this year.

August 12. 

August 12, 2013

To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies. You now see and hear no red-wings along the river as in spring. 

See the blue herons opposite Fair Haven Hill, as if they had bred here. 

This and the last day or two very hot. Now at last, methinks, the most melting season of this year, though I think it is hardly last year's bathing time, because the water is higher. There is very little air over the water, and when I dip my head in it for coolness, I do not feel any coolness.

Carry watermelons for drink. What more refreshing and convenient! This richest wine in a convenient cask, and so easily kept cool! No foreign wines could be so grateful. If you would cool a watermelon, do not put it in water, which keeps the heat in, but cut it open and set it in a cellar or in the shade. If you have carriage, carry these green bottles of wine.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 12, 1853

To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies. See August 4, 1856 ("Carried party a-berrying to Conantum in boat.")

See the blue herons opposite Fair Haven Hill, as if they had bred here. See August 24, 1854 ("See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. "); and note to August 19, 1858 ("Blue herons, which have bred or been bred not far from us (plainly), are now at leisure, or are impelled to revisit our slow stream")

The pensive season of the day.

August 11.

Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle. 

Evening draws on, smoothing the waters and lengthening the shadows, now half an hour or more before sundown. 

Some fiat has gone forth and stilled the ripples of the lake; each sound and sight has acquired ineffable beauty.  Broad, shallow lakes of shadow stretch over the lower portions of the top of the woods. A thousand little cavities are filling with coolness. Hills and the least inequalities in the ground begin to cast an obvious shadow. The shadow of an elm stretches quite across the meadow. From far over the pond and woods I hear a farmer calling loudly to his cows, in the clear still air, "Ker, ker, ker, ker." 

What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening, this season of the day most favorable for reflection, after the insufferable heats and the bustle of the day are over and before the twilight?  The serene hour, the season of reflection! The pensive season.

The few sounds now heard, far or near, are delicious. Each sound has a broad and deep relief of silence. It is not more dusky and obscure, but clearer than before. The poet arouses himself and collects his thoughts.  

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 11, 1853

Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle. See. August 13, 1852 ("Pennyroyal abundant in bloom. I find it springing from the soil lodged on large rocks in sprout-lands, and gather a little bundle, which scents my pocket for many days.");  August 13, 1856 ("Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime? — The polygala roots, blue-curls, wormwood, pennyroyal, Solidago odora, rough sunflowers, horse-mint, etc., etc. Does not the season require this tonic?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aromatic Herbs

What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening. . . before the twilight? See August 31, 1852 ("This is the most glorious part of this day, the serenest, warmest, brightest part, and the most suggestive. . . .Evening is pensive. The serenity is far more remarkable to those who are on the water."); May 17, 1853 ("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.") and A Book of the Seasons, The hour before sunset

August 11.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 11

 

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

Aug. 11.

 5 A. M. — Up North Branch.

 A considerable fog.

 The weeds still covered by the flood, so that we have no Bidens Beckii.

 B. chrysanthemoides just out.

 The small, dull, lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now hang over the water.

 The Amphicarpæa monoica appears not to have bloomed.

 Chickweed ( Stellaria media ) appears the most constant flower and most regardless of seasons.

 Cerastium blooms still.

 Button-bush and mikania now in prime, and cardinals.

 Lilies rather scarce (? ), but methinks less infested with insects.

 The river sprinkled with meadow-hay afloat.

 P. M. – To Conantum.

 This is by some considered the warmest day of the year thus far; but, though the weather is melting hot, yet the river having been deepened and cooled by the rains, we have none of those bathing days of July,’52.

 Yesterday or day before, I heard a strange note, me thought from somebody’s poultry, and looking out saw, I think a bittern, go squawking over the yard — from the river southwestward.

 A bittern, flying over, mingles its squawk with the cackling of poultry.

 Did I not hear a willet yesterday? At the Swamp Bridge Brook, flocks of cow troopials now about the cows.

 These and other blackbirds, flying in flocks now, make a great chattering, and also the bobolinks.

 What a humming of insects about the sweet-scented clethra blossoms, honey-bees and others, and flies and various kinds of wasps!

I see some naked viburnum berries red and some purple now.

 There are berries which men do not use, like choke-berries, which here in Hubbard’s Swamp grow in great profusion and blacken the bushes.

 How much richer we feel for this unused abundance and superfluity! Nature would not appear so rich, the pro fusion so rich, if we knew a use for everything.

 Plums and grapes, about which gardeners make such an ado, are in my opinion poor fruits compared with melons.

 The great rains have caused those masses of small green high blueberries, which commonly do not get ripe, to swell and ripen, so that their harvest fulfills the promise of their spring.

 I never saw so many, — even in swamps where a fortnight ago there was no promise.

 What a helpless creature a horse is out of his element or off his true ground!

Saw John Potter’s horse mired in his meadow, which has been softened by the rains.

 His small hoofs afford no support.

 He is furious, as if mad, and is liable to sprain himself seriously.

 His hoofs go through the crust like stakes, into the soft batter beneath, though the wheels go well enough.

 Woodbine is reddening in some places, and ivy too.

 Collinsonia just begun.

 Found — rather garrulous (his breath smelled of rum).

 Was complaining that his sons did not get married.

 He told me his age when he married (thirty-odd years ago), how his wife bore him eight children and 369 then died, and in what respect she proved herself a true woman, etc., etc.

 I saw that it was as impossible to speak of marriage to such a man — to the mass of men-as of poetry.

 Its advantages and disadvantages are not such as they have dreamed of.

 Their marriage is prose or worse.

 To be married at least should be the one poetical act of a man's life.

 If you fail in this respect, in what respect will you succeed?

The marriage which the mass of men comprehend is but little better than the marriage of the beasts.

 It would be just as fit for such a man to discourse to you on the love of flowers, thinking of them as hay for his oxen.

 The difference between men affects every phase of their lives, so that at last they cannot communicate with each other.

 An old man of average worth, who spoke with the downrightness and frankness of age, not exaggerating aught, said he was troubled about his water, etc., — altogether of the earth.

 

 Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height.

 I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle.

 Evening draws on, smoothing the waters and lengthening the shadows, now half an hour or more before sundown.

 What constitutes the charm of this hour of the day?

Is it the condensing of dews in the air just beginning, or the grateful increase of shadows in the landscape?

Some fiat has gone forth and stilled the ripples of the lake; each sound and sight has acquired ineffable beauty.

 How agreeable, when the sun shines at this angle, to stand on one side and look down on flourishing sprout-lands or copses, where the cool shade is mingled in greater proportion than before with the light!

 Broad, shallow lakes of shadow stretch over the lower portions of the top of the woods.

 A thousand little cavities are filling with coolness.

 Hills and the least inequalities in the ground begin to cast an obvious shadow.

 The shadow of an elm stretches quite across the meadow.

 I see pigeons (?) in numbers fly up from the stubble.

 I hear some young bluebird’s plaintive warble near me and some young hawks uttering a puling scream from time to time across the pond, to whom life is yet so novel.

 From far over the pond and woods I hear also a farmer calling loudly to his cows, in the clear still air, “ Ker, ker, ker, ker.”

 

 What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening, this severe and placid season of the day, most favorable for reflection, after the insufferable heats and the bustle of the day are over and before the dampness and twilight of evening!

 The serene hour, the Muses ’hour, the season of reflection!

 It is commonly desecrated by being made tea time.

 It begins perhaps with the very earliest condensation of moisture in the air, when the shadows of hills are first observed, and the breeze begins to go down, and birds begin again to sing.

 The pensive season.

 It is earlier than the “chaste eve” of the poet.

 Bats have not come forth.

 It is not twilight.

 There is no dew yet on the grass, and still less any early star in the heavens.

 It is the turning-point between afternoon and evening.

 The few sounds now heard, far or near, are delicious.

 It is not more dusky and obscure, but clearer than 371 before.

 The clearing of the air by condensation of mists more than balances the increase of shadows.

 Chaste eve is merely preparing with “dewy finger” to draw o’er all “the gradual dusky veil.

 ”Not yet“ the plough man homeward plods his weary way, ” nor owls nor beetles are abroad.

 It is a season somewhat earlier than is celebrated by the poets.

 There is not such a sense of lateness and approaching night as they describe.

 I mean when the first emissaries of Evening come to smooth the lakes and streams.

 The poet arouses himself and collects his thoughts.

 He postpones tea indefinitely.

 Thought has taken her siesta.

 Each sound has a broad and deep relief of silence