Now, just before sundown, a nighthawk is circling, imp-like, with undulating, irregular flight over the sprout-land on the Cliff Hill, with an occasional squeak and showing the spots on his wings. He does not circle away from this place, and I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath and a mate there sitting.
This squeak and occasional booming is heard in the evening air, while the stillness on the side of the village makes more distinct the increased hum of insects. I see at a distance a kingbird or blackbird pursuing a crow lower down the hill, like a satellite revolving about a black planet.
I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. I would fain drink a draft of Nature's serenity. Let deep answer to deep.
Already I see reddening clouds reflected in the smooth mirror of the river, a delicate tint, unlike anything in the sky as yet. The evergreens now look even black by contrast with the sea of fresh and light-green foliage which surrounds them. Children have been to the Cliffs and woven wreaths or chaplets of oak leaves, which they have left, for they were unconsciously attracted by the beauty of the leaves now.
The sun goes down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot weather, as if the western horizon or the lower stratum of the air were filled with the hot dust of the day.
I love to sit here and look off into the broad deep vale in which the shades of night are beginning to prevail. When the sun has set, the river becomes more white and distinct in the landscape.
I return by moonlight.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 5, 1854
I associate him with two gray eggs. See June 1, 1853 and June 7, 1853.
I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. See July 14, 1854 (Health is a sound relation to nature); December 29, 1856 ("We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. . . .I am aware that I recover some sanity which I had lost almost the instant that I come abroad."). See also August 14, 1854 ("I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, — to behold and commune with something grander than man.”)
. . .to recover sanity: A reference to HDT's agitation over the rendition of Anthony Burns.??? Probably not. See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854, June 16, 1854 and ""Slavery in Massachusetts,"("The remembrance of my country spoils my walk . . . I walk toward one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them; when we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? ") ~ Zphx
This squeak and occasional booming is heard in the evening air, while the stillness on the side of the village makes more distinct the increased hum of insects. I see at a distance a kingbird or blackbird pursuing a crow lower down the hill, like a satellite revolving about a black planet.
I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. I would fain drink a draft of Nature's serenity. Let deep answer to deep.
Already I see reddening clouds reflected in the smooth mirror of the river, a delicate tint, unlike anything in the sky as yet. The evergreens now look even black by contrast with the sea of fresh and light-green foliage which surrounds them. Children have been to the Cliffs and woven wreaths or chaplets of oak leaves, which they have left, for they were unconsciously attracted by the beauty of the leaves now.
The sun goes down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot weather, as if the western horizon or the lower stratum of the air were filled with the hot dust of the day.
I love to sit here and look off into the broad deep vale in which the shades of night are beginning to prevail. When the sun has set, the river becomes more white and distinct in the landscape.
I return by moonlight.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 5, 1854
I associate him with two gray eggs. See June 1, 1853 and June 7, 1853.
I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. See July 14, 1854 (Health is a sound relation to nature); December 29, 1856 ("We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. . . .I am aware that I recover some sanity which I had lost almost the instant that I come abroad."). See also August 14, 1854 ("I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, — to behold and commune with something grander than man.”)
. . .to recover sanity: A reference to HDT's agitation over the rendition of Anthony Burns.??? Probably not. See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854, June 16, 1854 and ""Slavery in Massachusetts,"("The remembrance of my country spoils my walk . . . I walk toward one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them; when we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? ") ~ Zphx
June 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 5
I would drink a draft
of Nature's serenity –
let deep answer deep.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, To see the sun go down
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-540605
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