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.”).

The polygonatum berries have been a bluish-green some time. Do they turn still? See August 27, 1856 (" I found the Polygonatum pubescens berries on its handsome leafy stem recurved over the hillside, generally two slaty-blue (but darkgreen beneath the bloom) berries on an axillary peduncle three quarters of an inch long, hanging straight down; eight or nine such peduncles, dividing to two short pedicels at end; the berries successively smaller from below upwards, from three eighths of an inch diameter to hardly more than one eighth.")

Dawn, August 21, 2013

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