A Book of the Seasons: December 15.

December 15.

The bare landscape looks

as if covered with snow on

these bright moonlit nights.

December 15, 1853

A few clean dry weeds

seen against smooth reflecting

water between ice!

December 15, 1854

The low grass and weeds

bent down with crystalline drops

now ready to freeze.

December 15, 1855

The now dark green pines.

The oak leaves and withered weeds

bleached above the snow.

The hushed stillness of

the wood at sundown, aye

all the winter day.

Smooth serenity

and reflections of the pond,

alone free from ice.

Hooting of the owl

with the distant whistle of

a locomotive.

The last strokes of the

woodchopper who presently

bends his steps homeward.

Gilded bar of cloud

conducting my thoughts into

the eternal west.

The horizon glow,

and the hasty walk homeward.

Long winter evening.

December 15, 1856

December 15, 2018

The first kind of snow-storm, or that of yesterday, which ceased in the night after some three inches had fallen, was that kind that makes handsome drifts behind the walls. December 15, 1859


There are no drifts equal to these behind loosely built stone walls, the wind passing between the stones. December 15, 1859


Slight as this snow was, these drifts now extend back four or five feet and as high as the wall, on the north side of the Corner Bridge road. December 15, 1859

I see on the ice, half a dozen rods from shore, a small brown striped grub, and again a black one five eighths of an inch long. The last has apparently melted quite a cavity in the ice. How came they there? December 15, 1854



A mild summer sun shines, over forest and lake. December 15, 1841

In the woods there is an inexpressible happiness. December 15, 1841.

The trees have come down to the bank to see the river go by. December 15, 1841

This old, familiar river is renewed each instant; only the channel is the same. December 15, 1841


The water which so calmly reflects the fleeting clouds and the primeval trees I have never seen before. December 15, 1841



I seem to see somewhat more of my own kith and kin in the lichens on the rocks than in any books. December 15, 1841

It does seem as if mine were a peculiarly wild nature, which so yearns toward all wildness. December 15, 1841



My love is invulnerable. Meet me on that ground, and you will find me strong. December 15, 1841





This morning it has begun to snow apparently in earnest. December 15, 1855


The air is quite thick and the view confined. December 15, 1855


It is quite still, yet some flakes come down from one side and some from another, crossing each other like woof and warp apparently, as they are falling in different eddies and currents of air. December 15, 1855

In the midst of it, I hear and see a few little chickadees prying about the twigs of the locusts in the graveyard. December 15, 1855


They have come into town with the snow. December 15, 1855


They now and then break forth into a short sweet strain, and then seem suddenly to check them selves, as if they had done it before they thought. December 15, 1855


How interesting a few clean, dry weeds on the shore a dozen rods off, seen distinctly against the smooth, reflecting water between ice! December 15, 1854

The boys have skated a little within two or three days, but it has not been thick enough to bear a man yet. December 15, 1855

How like a bird of ill omen the crow behaves! December 15, 1855


Still holding its ground in our midst like a powwow that is not to be exterminated! December 15, 1855


Sometimes when I am going through the Deep Cut, I look up and see half a dozen black crows flitting silently across in front and ominously eying down; passing from one wood to another, yet as if their passage had reference to me. December 15, 1855

The snow turns to rain, and this afternoon I walk in it down the railroad and through the woods. December 15, 1855


The low grass and weeds, bent down with a myriad little crystalline drops, ready to be frozen perhaps, are very interesting, but wet my feet through very soon. A steady but gentle, warm rain. December 15, 1855

How interesting a few clean, dry weeds on the shore a dozen rods off, seen distinctly against the smooth, reflecting water between ice! December 15, 1854

Looking from my window these bright moonlight nights, the ground being still bare, the whole landscape — fields, road, and roof — has a wintry aspect, as if covered with snow. It is the frost. December 15, 1853


It still blows hard at 2 p. m., but it is not cold. December 15, 1856

8 p.m.- To Walden. December 15, 1856

The high northwest wind of this morning, with what of cold we have, has made some of those peculiar rake-toothed icicles on the dead twigs, etc., about the edge of the pond at the east end. December 15, 1856

To produce this phenomenon is required only open water, a high wind, and sufficiently cold weather to freeze the spray. December 15, 1856

I still recall to mind that characteristic winter eve of December 9th; the cold, dry, and wholesome diet my mind and senses necessarily fed on, —

• · oak leaves, bleached and withered weeds that rose above the snow,
• · the now dark green of the pines, and
• · perchance the faint metallic chip of a single tree sparrow;
• · the hushed stillness of the wood at sundown, aye, all the winter day;
• · the short boreal twilight;
• · the smooth serenity and the reflections of the pond, still alone free from ice;
• · the melodious hooting of the owl, heard at the same time with
• the yet more distant whistle of a locomotive,. . .
• · the last strokes of the woodchopper,
• who presently bends his steps homeward;
• · the gilded bar of cloud across the apparent outlet of the pond,
• conducting my thoughts into the eternal west;
• · the deepening horizon glow; and
• · the hasty walk homeward to enjoy the long winter evening.

December 15, 1856

The hooting of the owl! That is a sound which my red predecessors heard here more than a thousand years ago. December 15, 1856

It rings far and wide, occupying the spaces rightfully, — grand, primeval, aboriginal sound. December 15, 1856

Saw a small flock of geese go over. December 15, 1852

One's life, the enterprise he is here upon, should certainly be a grand fact to consider . . . A man should not live without a purpose, and that purpose must surely be a grand one. December 15, 1852

*****

Li Po (There is bright moonlight so that it seems like frost on the ground")
Walden ("To effect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”)
Walden ("Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.")

April 29, 1852 (“The art of life, of a poet's life, is, not having anything to do, to do something.”)

August 8, 1852 ("When the play - it may be the tragedy of life - is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, ")

August 30, 1856 (“Many of our days should be spent, not in vain expectations and lying on our oars, but in carrying out deliberately and faithfully the hundred little purposes which every man's genius must have suggested to him. Let not your life be wholly without an object, though it be only to ascertain the flavor of a cranberry, for it will not be only the quality of an insignificant berry that you will have tasted, but the flavor of your life to that extent, and it will be such a sauce as no wealth can buy ”)

September 8, 1858 ("It is good policy to be stirring about your affairs, for the reward of activity and energy is that if you do not accomplish the object you had professed to yourself, you do accomplish something else.”) 

October 18, 1855 (“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”)

November 12, 1853 ("The meadows . . . look as if covered with frost in the moonlight.")

November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight.")

November 18, 1857 "Each man's necessary path, though as obscure and apparently uneventful as that of a beetle in the grass, is the way to the deepest joys he is susceptible of . . .”)

November 28, 1853 ("Boys skating in Cambridgeport, — the first ice to bear.")

December 1, 1857 ("I hear of two more flocks of geese going over to-day.”)

December 6, 1854 ("I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence, but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture.")

December 6, 1855 ("10 P. M. — Hear geese going over.”)

December 10, 1856 ("the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light.") 

December 10, 1856 ("The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night.")

 December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but I have had no time to skate for surveying. I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business.")

December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. . . .That of the 11th was a still storm, of large flakes falling gently in the quiet air, like so many white feathers descending in different directions when seen against a wood-side, . . . A myriad falling flakes weaving a coarse garment by which the eye is amused.”)

December 14, 1854 ("Your eye slides first over a plane surface of smooth ice of one color to a water surface of silvery smoothness, like a gem set in ice, and reflecting the weeds and trees and houses and clouds with singular beauty. The reflections are particularly simple and distinct.")
December 14, 1859 ("This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally 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 © 2009-2016