Old Election Day

May 31

May 24, 2024

Old Election. Cold weather. Many go a-fishing to-day in earnest, and one gets forty pouts in river.

P. M. — To Miles Meadow by boat. A cold southeast wind. Blue-eyed grass, apparently in pretty good season.  

See a greater telltale, and this is the only one I have seen probably; distinguished by its size. It is very watchful, but not timid, allowing me to come quite near, while it stands on the lookout at the water's edge. It keeps nodding its head with an awkward jerk, and wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. It acts the part of the telltale, though there are no birds here, as if it were with a flock. Remarkable as a sentinel for other birds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 31, 1854

Greater telltale. See September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow, and away they sail in a flock..."). But see JJ Audubon ("It is true that the Tell-tale is quite loquacious enough; nay, you, reader, and I, may admit that it is a cunning and watchful bird, ever willing to admonish you or me, or any other person whom it may observe advancing towards it with no good intent, that it has all along watched us. But then, when one has observed the habits of this bird for a considerable time, in different situations, and when no other feathered creatures are in sight, he will be convinced that the Tell-tale merely intends by its cries to preserve itself, and not generously to warn others of their danger.")


Old Election Day. By the Provincial Charter and later the Constitution  of Massachusetts, General Election Day occurred on the last Wednesday of May. This was one of the traditional and principal holidays in Massachusetts. Election day changed in 1832 to the first Wednesday in January; after the change, Annual Training Day and Muster took place on old election day in May. Other festivities of election week continued as Anniversary Week.   See Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 13  and Journal, May 27, 1857:

I hear the sound of fife and drum the other side of the village, and am reminded that it is May Training. Some thirty young men are marching in the streets in two straight sections, with each a very heavy and warm cap for the season on his head and a bright red stripe down the legs of his pantaloons, and at their head march two with white stripes down their pants, one beating a drum, the other blowing a fife...Thus they march and strut the better part of the day, going into the tavern two or three times, to abandon themselves to unconstrained positions out of sight, and at night they may be seen going home singly with swelling breasts.

~ Zphx



May 31. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 31

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

Early summer in Hubbard's Close

May 30

I see now green high blueberries, and gooseberries in Hubbard's Close, as well as shad-bush berries and strawberries.

May 30, 2016

In this dark, cellar-like maple swamp are scattered at pretty regular intervals tufts of green ferns, Osmunda cinnamomea,  above the dead brown leaves, broad, tapering fronds, curving over on every side from a compact centre, now three or four feet high. 

Wood frogs skipping over the dead leaves, whose color they resemble.

Arethusa bulbosa (Dragon's mouth)

I am surprised to find arethusas abundantly out in Hubbard's Close, maybe two or three days, though not yet at Arethusa Meadow, probably on account of the recent freshet. It is so leafless that it shoots up unexpectedly. It is all color, a little hook of purple flame projecting from the meadow into the air. Some are comparatively pale. This high-colored plant shoots up suddenly, all flower, in meadows where it is wet walking. A superb flower.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1854

Tufts of green ferns, Osmunda cinnamomea, See May 26, 1855 ("Cinnamon fern to-day"); May 28, 1858 ("The earliest cinnamon fern, apparently not long. "); May 31, 1857 (" Also the cinnamon fern grows in circles"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

Wood frog ~ See May 27, 1852 ("Catch a wood frog (Rana sylvatica), the color of a dead leaf. He croaks as I hold him, perfectly frog-like.”); September 12, 1857 ("I brought it close to my eye and examined it. It was very beautiful seen thus nearly, not the dull dead-leaf color which I had imagined, but its back was like burnished bronze . . . and reddish-orange soles to its delicate feet. There was a conspicuous dark-brown patch along the side of the head,"); October 16, 1857 ("I see a delicate pale brown-bronze wood frog. I think I can always take them up in my hand. They, too, vary in color,")   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

Arethusas abundantly out in Hubbard's Close. See May 30, 1852 ("The bulbous arethusa, the most splendid, rich, and high-colored flower thus far, methinks, all flower and color, almost without leaves, and looking much larger than it is, and more conspicuous on account of its intense color. A flower of mark. It appeared two or three times as large as reality when it flashed upon me from the meadow."); See also May 28, 1853 ("The bulbous arethusa out a day or two — probably yesterday. Though in a measure prepared for it, still its beauty surprised me; it is by far the highest and richest color yet. Its intense color in the midst of the green meadow made it look twice as large as reality; it looks very foreign in the midst of our plants - its richly speckled, curled, and bearded lip."); May 29, 1856 (" Two Arethusa bulbosa at Hubbard’s Close apparently a day or two.”);.June 1, 1855 (“Arethusa out at Hubbard’s Close; say two or three days at a venture, there being considerable.“) 

Arethusa Meadow and  Hubbard's Close. See Ray Angelo, Thoreau Place Namess, "Arethusa Meadow" ("This is a meadow near the Sudbury River that Thoreau names after the Arethusa orchid (Arethusa bulbosa) that was not uncommon in Thoreau’s time but now has disappeared from Concord and most of southern New Englan. . .  From the Journal references . . .we know that there was a Viburnum hedge on the west side of the meadow, that it was not far too far from the Sudbury River, Hubbard’s Bathing Place, and from a brook (almost certainly Hubbard’s Brook), that it was large enough to have been subject to ditching by the owners, and that it was an open, wet, sphagnous (peaty) area -- habitat suitable for the orchid.") and "Hubbard's Close" ("This close -- a small piece of enclosed land -- refers to an area just east of Walden Street surrounded by elevated land on all but two narrow sides. It is within the current Town Forest and in Thoreau’s time was known as Fairyland. Thoreau’s reference to Cotton-grass (Eriophorum sp.), the Grass-pink orchid (Calopogon tuberosus) and Arethusa orchid (Arethusa bulbosa) in the Close indicates that it had an open, sphagnous area. Apparently there was a pool in the Close according to his Journal entry of April 7, 1855.. . .This land and much of the surrounding woods (“Ebby Hubbard’s Woods”) was owned by the farmer Ebenezer Hubbard (1782 - 1871) after whom Thoreau named this close. Thoreau refers to Brister’s Meadow only in 1852 twice. He began to use the name Hubbard’s Close in 1853. He associated the very uncommon wildflower Polygala cruciata with both these place names. These circumstances establish the equivalence of these two names.")

May 30. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30 

The arethusa

shoots up unexpectedly –

it is all color.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The arethusa shoots up unexpectedly

"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-540530

The white maple keys fall and float down the stream like wings of great insects.

May 29

P. M. — To Cedar Swamp by Assabet. 

The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream like the wings of great insects. 

Dandelions and mouse-ear down have been blowing for some time and are seen on water. These are interesting as methinks the first of the class of downy seeds which are more common in the fall. 

There are myriads of shad-flies fluttering over the dark and still water under the hill, one every yard or two, continually descending, almost falling, to the surface of the water as if to drink and then rising again, again to fall upon it, and so on. I see the same one fall and rise five or six feet thus four or five times; and now comes along a large dragon-fly and snatches one. 

Other smaller insects, light-colored, are fluttering low close to the water, and in some places are swarms of small black moths.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1854

Today's entry includes an extended comment on the fugitive slave trial, in Boston, of Anthony Burns. This material and more from June 9, 1854, toned down, would be worked into HDT's "Slavery in Massachusetts." ("These days it is left to one Mr. Loring to say whether a citizen of Massachusetts is a slave or not. ... Why, the United States Government never performed an act of justice in its life!...Rather than thus consent to establish hell upon earth, — to be a party to this establishment, — I would touch a match to blow up earth and hell together." ) ~ Zphx.

See Thoreau Transforms His Journal into “Slavery in Massachusetts”


The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream like the wings of great insects. See May 21, 1853 ("The white maple keys are nearly two inches long by a half-inch wide, in pairs, with waved inner edges like green moths ready to bear off their seeds.");  May 30, 1853 ("The white maple keys falling and covering the river.");  June 6, 1855 ("The white maple keys are about half fallen.”); June 9, 1858 ("White maple keys are abundantly floating.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Maple Keys

Dandelions and mouse-ear down have been blowing for some time and are seen on water. See May 29, 1853 ("Fields are whitened with mouse-ear gone to seed — a mass of white fuzz blowing off one side — and also with dandelion globes of seeds.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Mouse-ear

There are myriads of shad-flies fluttering over the dark and still water. See .  May 4, 1856 ("Shad-flies on the water, schooner-like");  June 2, 1854 ("When we returned to our boat at 7 p. m., I noticed first, to my surprise, that the river was all alive with leaping fish . . . Looking up I found that the whole atmosphere over the river was full of shad-flies. It was a great flight of ephemera.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

May 29. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 29

The white maple keys

fall and float down the stream like

wings of great insects.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Insects on the water

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540529

To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe.

May 28

Sunday. 

May 28, 2014

The F. hyemalis, fox-colored sparrow, rusty grackles, tree sparrows, have all gone by; also the purple finch. The snipe has ceased (?) to boom. I have not heard the phoebe of late, and methinks the bluebird and the robin are not heard so often (the former certainly not ). Those tumultuous morning concerts of sparrows, tree and song, hyemalis, and grackles, like leaves on the trees, are past, and the woodland quire will rather be diminished than increased henceforth. 

But, on the other hand, toads and frogs and insects, especially at night, all through June, betray by the sounds they make their sensitiveness to the increasing temperature, and theirs especially is the music which ushers in the summer. Each warmer night, like this, the toads and frogs sing with increased energy, and already fill the air with sound, though the bullfrogs have not yet begun to trump in earnest. To this add the hum and creak of insects. These still herald or expect the summer. The birds do not foretell that. 

12 M.  By boat to Lee's Cliff.  

The River is still so high that I am obliged to lower my mast at the bridges. Even this spring the arches of the stone bridge were completely concealed by the flood, and yet at midsummer I can sail under them without lowering my mast. 

At the old bridge at the hill, the water being quite smooth, I see a water-bug cross straight from the south to the north side, about six rods, furrowing the water in a waving line, there being no other insects near him on the surface. It takes but about a minute. 

Red clover at Clamshell, a day or two. 

The huckleberries, excepting the late, are now generally in blossom, their rich clear red contrasting with the light-green leaves; frequented by honey-bees, full of promise for the summer. One of the great crops of the year. These are the blossoms of the Vacciniece, or Whortleberry Family, which affords so large a proportion of our berries. 

The crop of oranges, lemons, nuts, and raisins, and figs, quinces, etc., etc., not to mention tobacco and the like, is of no importance to us compared with these. 

The berry-promising flower of the Vacciniece. This crop grows wild all over the country, — wholesome, bountiful, and free, — a real ambrosia — and yet men — the foolish demons that they are — devote themselves to culture of tobacco, inventing slavery and a thousand other curses as the means, — with infinite pains and inhumanity go raise tobacco all their lives. Tobacco is the staple instead of huckleberries.

The huckleberries

now generally in blossom

so full of promise.

Frequented by bees

their rich clear red contrasting

with the light-green leaves.

Wholesome bountiful

and free, this crop grows wild all

over the country.

Finding the low blackberry nearly open, I looked long and at last, where the vine ran over a rock on the south hillside, the reflected heat had caused it [to] open fully its large white blossoms. In such places, apparently yesterday. The high blackberry in similar places, at least to-day. 

At these rocks I hear a sharp peep, methinks of a peetweet dashing away. Four pale-green (?) eggs, finely sprinkled with brown, in a brown thrasher's nest, on the ground (!!) under a barberry bush. 

The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost. 

The crickets, though it is everywhere an oppressively warm day (yesterday I had a fire !! ) and I am compelled to take off my thinnish coat, are heard, particularly amid the rocks at Lee's Cliff. They must love warmth. As if it were already autumn there. 

See that common snake Coluber eximius of De Kay, — checkered adder, etc., etc., — forty-one inches long. A rather light brown above, with large dark-brown, irregularly quadrangular blotches, margined with black, and similar small ones, on the sides; abdomen light salmon-white, — whitest toward the head, — checkered with quadrangular blotches; very light bluish-slate in some lights and dark-slate or black in others. 

I should think from Storer's description that his specimen had lost its proper colors in spirits. He describes not the colors of a living snake, but those which alcohol might impart to it. It is as if you were to describe the white man as very red in the face, having seen a drunkard only.

It would be worth the while to ask ourselves weekly, 

Is our life innocent enough? Do we live inhumanely, toward man or beast, in thought or act?

To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe. 

The least conscious and needless injury inflicted on any creature is to its extent a suicide. What peace — or life — can a murderer have?The inhumanity of science concerns me, as when I am tempted to kill a rare snake that I may ascertain its species. I feel that this is not the means of acquiring true knowledge.

As I sail down toward the Clamshell Hill about an hour before sunset, the water is smoothed like glass, though the breeze is as strong as before. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1854

The woodland quire will rather be diminished than increased henceforth. See April 25, 1854 ("I hear the woods filled with the hum of insects, as if my hearing were affected; and thus the summer's quire begins. The silent spaces have begun to be filled with notes of birds and insects and the peep and croak and snore of frogs,"); June 25, 1854 ("Through June the song of the birds is gradually growing fainter."); August 2, 1854 ("he woodland quire has steadily diminished in volume."): 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.")

Even this spring the arches of the stone bridge were completely concealed by the flood, and yet at midsummer I can sail under them without lowering my mast. See May 8, 1854 (“The water has fallen a foot or more, but I cannot get under the stone bridge, so haul over the road.”); May 10, 1854 ("I drag and push my boat over the road at Deacon Farrar's brook, carrying a roller with me. . . . I make haste back with a fair wind and umbrella for sail.”); April 17, 1856 (“I make haste to take down my sail at the bridges, but at the stone arches forgot my umbrella, which was un avoidably crushed in part.”); April 22, 1857 (“We have to roll our boat over the road at the stone bridge”)

The huckleberries . . . now generally in blossom, their rich clear red contrasting with the light-green leaves, . . . full of promise for the summer. . . .See May 27, 1855 ("How interesting the huckleberries now generally in blossom . . . — countless wholesome red bells, beneath the fresh yellow green foliage!”)

Blackberries. See  June 16, 1858 ("How agreeable and wholesome the fragrance of the low blackberry blossom, reminding me of all the rosaceous fruit bearing plants, so near and dear to our humanity.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost. See May 29,1854 (" Saw what I thought my night warbler sparrow-like with chestnut stripes on breast white or whitish below and about eyes and perhaps chestnut head."); May 19, 1858 (“Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low. ”According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird

The inhumanity of science concerns me, as when I am tempted to kill a rare snake that I may ascertain its species.  See April 26, 1857 ("I have the same objection to killing a snake that I have to the killing of any other animal, yet the most humane man that I know never omits to kill one.”) Cf. Wordsworth, The Tables Turned ("We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art . . . Come forth, and bring with you a heart that watches and receives.")

To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe. See  February 20, 1857 ("I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other. I am that rock by the pond-side.?) May 12, 1857 (“He is a brother poet, this small gray bird (or bard), whose muse inspires mine. . . .One with the rocks and with us.”)
 

May 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

To be serene and

successful we must be one

with the universe.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, We must be one with the universe

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt-540528

Two vireos

yellow-throated vireo

May 27.

The red-eye is an indefatigable singer, — a succession of short bars with hardly an interval long continued, now at 3 p. m. 

I see and hear the yellow-throated vireo. It is somewhat similar (its strain) to that of the red-eye, prelia pre-li-ay, with longer intervals and occasionally a whistle like tlea tlow, or chowy chow, or tully ho on a higher key. It flits about in the tops of the trees. 

I find the pensile nest of a red-eye between a fork of a shrub chestnut near the path. It is made, thus far, of bark and different woolly and silky materials.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 27, 1854

The red-eye is an indefatigable singer.  See  May 27, 1853 ("The vireo, too, is heard more than ever on the elms; his note begins to prevail."); May 29, 1855 ("The red-eye, its clear loud song in bars continuously repeated and varied”); June 11, 1856 ("The red-eye sings incessant”);  June 11, 1852 ("The red-eye sings now in the woods, perhaps more than any other bird. “);  June 12, 1853 ("The red-eyed vireo is the bird most commonly heard in the woods.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red-eyed Vireo

I see and hear the yellow-throated vireo. See August 20, 1854 (“yellow-throated vireo, heard and saw, on hickories (have I lately mistaken this for red-eye ?)”); May 28, 1855 ("Do I not hear a short snappish, rasping note from a yellow-throat vireo?"); May 29, 1855 ( "Also the yellow-throated vireo—its head and shoulders as well as throat yellow (apparently olive-yellow above), and its strain but little varied and short, not continuous.”); May 19, 1856 ("Hear and see a yellow-throated vireo, which methinks I have heard before . . . singing indolently, ullia — eelya, and sometimes varied to eelyee.”)

May 27. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 27

Red-eye the singer – 

a succession of short bars 

with no interval. 

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Two vireos

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-540527

The season of grass, now everywhere green and luxuriant, vibrating with motion and light.

May 26

May 26, 2017

Rye four feet high. The luxuriant and rapid growth of this hardy and valuable grass is always surprising.  How genial must nature be to it! It makes the revolution of the seasons seem a rapid whirl. How quickly and densely it clothes the earth! 

Thus early it suggests the harvest and fall. At sight of this deep and dense field all vibrating with motion and light, looking into the mass of its pale-green culms, winter recedes many degrees in my memory. 

This the early queen of grasses with us. It always impresses us at this season with a sense of genialness and bountifulness. 

Grasses universally shoot up like grain now. Pastures look as if they were mowing-land. The season of grass, now everywhere green and luxuriant. 

The leaves have now grown so much that it is difficult to see the small birds in the tree-tops, and it is too late now to survey in woods conveniently. 

Some young red oaks have already grown eighteen inches, i. e. within a fortnight, before their leaves have two-thirds expanded. They have accomplished more than half their year's growth, as if, being held back by winter, their vegetative force had accumulated and now burst forth like a stream which has been dammed. They are properly called shoots.

Why is the downy Populus grandidentata so much later than the other ? The lint now begins to come off the young leaves. 

The annular eclipse of the sun this afternoon is invisible on account of the clouds. Yet it seems to have created a strong wind by lowering the temperature? 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 26, 1854

Rye four feet high. The luxuriant and rapid growth of this hardy and valuable grass is always surprising. May 14, 1853 ("The dark bluish-green of that rye, already beginning to wave,"); May 15, 1860 ("The springing sorrel, the expanding leafets, the already waving rye tell of June.");  May 22, 1853 ("The rye, which, when I last looked, was one foot high, is now three feet high and waving and tossing its heads in the wind . . .I am never prepared for this magical growth of the rye. I am advanced by whole months, as it were, into summer. . . . This is the first truly lively summer Sunday, what with lilacs, warm weather, waving rye, . . . falling apple blossoms, . . .and the wood pewee.")

They have accomplished more than half their year's growth, . . . They are properly called shoots. See May 15, 1859 ("I see an oak shoot (or sprout) already grown ten inches, when the buds of oaks and of most trees are but just burst generally. . . . Very properly these are called shoots."); May 25, 1853 ("Many do most of their growing for the year in a week or two at this season. They shoot - they spring - and the rest of the Year they harden and mature,")

May 26. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 26

Winter recedes in 

memory by  many degrees 

this season of grass

luxuriant growth  

vibrating motion and light

now everywhere green

such bountifulness

suggests the harvest and fall –

seasons' rapid whirl.

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The season of grass

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540526

A handsome bird with a loud and very rich song, in character between that of a robin and a red-eye.

"A robin with singing lessons."

May 25.

5.30 A. M. — To Hill.  Hear and see by the sassafras shore the rose-breasted grosbeak, a handsome bird with a loud and very rich song, in character between that of a robin and a red-eye. It sings steadily like a robin. 

Rose breast, white beneath, black head and above, white on shoulder and wings.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 25, 1854

See May 21, 1856 ("What strong colored fellows, black, white, and fiery rose-red breasts! Strong-natured, too, with their stout bills. A clear, sweett singer, like a tanager but hoarse somewhat, and not shy.");  May 24, 1855 (" Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. At first think it a tanager, but soon I perceive its more clear and instrumental — should say whistle, if one could whistle like a flute; a noble singer, reminding me also of a robin; clear, loud and flute-like") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Loud very rich song,

black head, rose breast white beneath –

Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Loud and very rich song

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-540525

The morning came in and awakened me early...

May 24. 

May 24. 2014

The morning came in and awakened me early, — for I slept with a window open. 

There are dewy cobwebs on the grass.

4.30 A. M. — To Cliffs. A considerable fog, but already rising and retreating to the river. As I go along the causeway the sun rises red, with a great red halo, through the fog. 

When I reach the hill, the fog over the river already has its erectile feathers up. The level expanse of it far in the east, now lit by the sun, with countless tree-tops like oases seen through it, reminds of vast tracts of sand and of the seashore. It is like a greater dewy cobweb spread over the earth. It gives a wholly new aspect to the world, especially in that direction. 

The sun is eating up the fog. As I return down the hill, my eyes are cast toward the very dark mountains in the northwest horizon.

P.M.  Wade into Beck Stow's. The water is so cold at first that I think it not prudent to stand long in it, but when I get further from the bank it is comparatively warm.  

Andromeda polifolia

Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime at least a week or more. It is in water a foot and a half deep, and rises but little above it. The water must have been several inches higher when it began to bloom.

A timid botanist would never pluck it. Its flowers are more interesting than any of its family, almost globular, crystalline white, even the calyx, except its tips, tinged with red or rose. 

Properly called water andromeda: you must wade into water a foot or two deep to get it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1854

Dewy cobwebs on the grass . . . A considerable fog. See May 21, 1854 ("A slight fog in morning.Cobwebs on grass, the first I have noticed. This is one of the late phenomena of spring . . . When these begin to be seen, then is not summer come?")

Dark mountains in the northwest horizon.  See May 24, 1860 ("Looking into the northwest horizon, I see that Wachusett is partially concealed by a haze. This is one of the values of mountains in the horizon, that they indicate the state of the atmosphere. I should not have noticed this haze if I had not looked toward the mountains.")

Beck Stow's. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp

Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom. See May 24, 1855 ("Andromeda Polifolia now in prime . . . Its shoots or new leaves, unfolding, say when it flowered or directly after, now one inch long") See also July 14, 1853 ("In Beck Stow’s Swamp to-day approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

May 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 24 

The morning came in

and awakened me early –

a window open.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The morning came in and awakened me early

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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***

Instead of down the ravine we bushwalk in the now quiet deep woods to the main Kendall trail heading more east,  as the sun is getting low then one of her instinctive bush-walks turn right down very faint loogging roads straight to Clifford corner.

The moist woods are deep full of oven birds and thrushes.

At Moose trail she thinks she may see a moose track then hears the Swainsons thrush we cut corners to the ridge trail. she calls in a black throated blue. A stunning sky from lower view (curved rain in sunset). we are 200 yds from home 8 PM when the rain begins.

Past Clifford corner

the deep moist woods are full of 

ovenbirds and thrushes. 

May 24, 2014

The wood pewee sings now in the woods behind the spring in the heat of the day. [We soon get through with Nature.]

May 23. 

The wood pewee sings now in the woods behind the spring in the heat of the day (2 p. m.), sitting on a low limb near me, pe-a-wee, pe-a-wee, etc., five or six times at short and regular intervals, looking about all the while, and then, naively, pee-a-oo, emphasizing the first syllable, and begins again. It flies off occasionally a few feet, catches an insect and returns to its perch between  the bars, not allowing this to interrupt their order.

We soon get through with Nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy. The merest child which has rambled into a copsewood dreams of a wilderness so wild and strange and inexhaustible as Nature can never show him. The red-bird which I saw on my companion's string on election days I thought but the outmost sentinel of the wild, immortal camp, — of the wild and dazzling infantry of the wilderness, — that the deeper woods abounded with redder birds still; but, now that I have threaded all our woods and waded the swamps, I have never yet met with his compeer, still less his wilder kindred.

The red-bird which is the last of Nature is but the first of God. The White Mountains, likewise, were smooth mole hills to my expectation. We condescend to climb the crags of earth. It is our weary legs alone that praise them. That forest on whose skirts the red-bird flits is not of earth. 

I expected a fauna more infinite and various, birds of more dazzling colors and more celestial song.

How many springs shall I continue to see the common sucker (Catostomus Bostoniensis) floating dead on our river! 

Will not Nature select her types from a new fount? The vignette of the year. This earth which is spread out like a map around me is but the lining of my inmost soul exposed. In me is the sucker that I see. No wholly extraneous object can compel me to recognize it. I am guilty of suckers. I go about to look at flowers and listen to the birds.

There was a time when the beauty and the music were all within, and I sat and listened to my thoughts, and there was a song in them. I sat for hours on rocks and wrestled with the melody which possessed me. I sat and listened by the hour to a positive though faint and distant music, not sung by any bird, nor vibrating any earthly harp. When I walked with a joy which knew not its own origin. When I was an organ of which the world was but one poor broken pipe. I lay long on the rocks, foundered like a harp on the seashore, that knows not how it is dealt with. I sat on the earth as on a raft, listening to music that was not of the earth, but which ruled and arranged it. 

Man should be the harp articulate. When your cords were tense.

Think of going abroad out of one's self to hear music, — to Europe or Africa! Instead of so living as to be the lyre which the breath of the morning causes to vibrate with that melody which creates worlds — to sit up late and hear Jenny Lind!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 23, 1854

The wood pewee sings now in the woods behind the spring in the heat of the day. See May 22, 1854 ("I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Arrival of the Eastern Wood Pewee

We soon get through with Nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy. Compare May 10, 1853 ("I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant") and August 7, 1853 ("Is it not as language that all natural objects affect the poet? He sees a flower or other object, and it is beautiful or affecting to him because it is a symbol of his thought, and what he indistinctly feels or perceives is matured in some other organization. The objects I behold correspond to my mood.")

How many springs shall I continue to see the common sucker (Catostomus Bostoniensis) floating dead on our river! In me is the sucker that I see. See note to March 28, 1857 "I can remember now some thirty years — after a fashion — of life in Concord, and every spring there are many dead suckers floating belly upward on the meadows."

I sat for hours on rocks and wrestled with the melody which possessed me.  See January 1, 1852 ("Perhaps the only thing that spoke to me on this walk was the bare, lichen-covered gray rock at the Cliff, in the moonlight, naked and almost warm as in summer.");  Auguat 7, 1854 ("Our mind is like the strings of a harp which is swept, and we stand and listen"); February 20, 1857 ("If I were to discover that a certain kind of stone by the pond-shore was affected, say partially disintegrated, by a particular natural sound, as of a bird or insect, I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other. I am that rock by the pond-side. ")

When I walked with a joy which knew not its own origin. July 16, 1851("This earth was the most glorious musical instrument, and I was audience to its strains. To have such sweet impressions made on us, such ecstasies begotten of the breezes ! I can remember how I was astonished. I said to myself, — I said to others, — " There comes into my mind such an indescribable, infinite, all-absorbing, divine, heavenly pleasure, a sense of elevation and expansion, and [I] have had nought to do with it. I perceive that I am dealt with by superior powers.1 This is a pleasure, a joy, an existence which I have not procured myself.”)

to sit up late and hear Jenny Lind. See August 30, 1856 (“I get my new experiences still, not at the opera listening to the Swedish Nightingale, but at Beck Stow's Swamp listening to the native wood thrush. ”)

May 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau May 23

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The wood pewee sings in the wood behind the spring.

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-540523

Now the springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods

May 22.

5.30 a. m. — Up Assabet.  

May 22, 2019

Now begins the slightly sultryish morning air 

into which you awake early to hear 

the faint buzz of a fly 

or hum of other insect. 

The teeming air, deep and hollow, 

filled with some spiritus, 

pregnant as not in winter 

or spring, with room for imps, 

— good angels and bad, —

 

many chambers in it, 

infinite sounds. 

I partially awake the first time for a month at least. 

As if the cope of the sky lifted, 

the heat stretched and swelled it as a bladder, 

and it remained permanently higher 

and more infinite for the summer. Suggesting 

that the night has not been, with its incidents.

10 a. m. — To Fair Haven by boat. 

I rest in the orchard, doubtful 

whether to sit in shade or sun. 

Now the springing foliage 

is like a sunlight on the woods. 

I am first attracted 

and surprised 

when I look round and off to Conantum, 

at the smooth, lawn-like green fields. 

The air so clear 

— as not in summer — 

makes all things shine, 

as if all surfaces had been washed 

by the rains of spring 

and were not yet soiled 

or begrimed or dulled. You see 

even to the mountains clearly. 

The grass so short and fresh, 

the tender yellowish-green and silvery 

foliage of the deciduous trees 

lighting up the landscape, 

the birds now most musical, 

the sorrel beginning to redden 

the fields with ruddy health, — 

all these things make earth now a paradise. 

How many times 

I have been surprised  thus, 

on turning about on this very spot, 

at the fairness of the earth!

At Lee's Cliff. --

First observe the creak of crickets. It is quite general amid these rocks. The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. It is only late for all trivial and hurried pursuits. It suggests a wisdom mature, never late, being above all temporal considerations, which possesses the coolness and maturity of autumn amidst the aspiration of spring and the heats of summer. They sit aside from the revolution of the seasons. Their strain is unvaried as Truth. 

Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. In their song they ignore our accidents. They are not concerned about the news. A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal. 

I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu, the first syllable in a different and higher key emphasized, — all very sweet and naive and innocent.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 22, 1854

The tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape, the birds now most musical — all these things make earth now a paradise. See May 17, 1852   (“The sun comes out and lights up the tender expanding leaves, and all nature is full of light and fragrance, and the birds sing without ceasing, and the earth is a fairyland. ”); May 18, 1852 (“this tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date.”); May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.”)

How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth! See  May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”); October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape”); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.”).  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

First observe the creak of crickets. See May 22, 1853 ("The crickets now first are generally heard.") See also May 24, 1857 ("Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer with his everlasting strain."); June 4, 1857 (" One thing that chiefly distinguishes this season from three weeks ago is that fine serene undertone or earth-song as we go by sunny banks and hillsides, the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity.") andA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in Spring

I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu. See  May 22, 1853 ("The wood pewee’s warm note is heard") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Arrival of the Eastern Wood Pewee

May 22.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 22

Turning round, I am

surprised one more time by the

beauty of the world.

Springing foliage

lights up the landscape like a

sunlight on the woods.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. 

Springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods

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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