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.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
I sit on this rock
surprised one more time by the
beauty of the world.
The globe is richer
for the variety of
its inhabitants.
While I was measuring the tree
Puffer came along
and I had a long talk with him
standing under the tree
in the cool sprinkling rain
till we shivered.
The wooded shore is
all lit up with the tender
bright green of birches
fluttering in the wind and
shining in the light.
The light reflected
from their tender yellowish
green is like sunlight.
May 17.
The wooded shore is
all lit up with the tender
bright green of birchesfluttering in the wind and
shining in the light,
When the birches have
put on their green sacks, then a
new season has come.
The light reflected
from their tender yellowish
green is like sunlight.
May 17, 1854Soft rippling sound
near aspen at the island –
first fluttering leaves.
May 17, 2016
Now the sun has come out after the May storm, how bright, how full of freshness and tender promise and fragrance is the new world ! May 17, 1852
Now is the time to admire the very young and tender leaves. May 17, 1853
The woods putting forth new leaves; it is a memorable season. So hopeful ! These young leaves have the beauty of flowers. May 17, 1852
The sweetest singers among the birds are heard more distinctly now, as the reflections are seen more distinctly in the water, — the veery constantly now. May 17, 1853
The first veery note. May 17, 1852
Hear the first veery note. May 17, 1856
I hear the wood pewee, — pe-a-wai. The heat of yesterday has brought him on. May 17, 1853
Hear the wood pewee, the warm weather sound. May 17, 1854
The wood thrush has sung for some time. He touches a depth in me which no other bird's song does. May 17, 1853
I hear the first unquestionable nighthawk squeak and see him circling far off high above the earth. It is now about 5 o'clock p. m. May 17, 1853
In the intervals of the rain, the chewink is heard again, and the huckleberry-bird, and the evergreen-forest note, etc. . . . I see a chewink flit low across the road with its peculiar flirting, undulating motion. May 17, 1858
The Sylvia Americana (parti-colored warbler, etc.) is very numerous there, darting about amid the hoary buds of the maples and oaks, etc. It seems the most restless of all birds, blue more or less deep above, with yellow dust on the back, yellow breast, and white beneath (the male with bright—orange throat, and some with a rufous crescent on breast); wings and tail, dark, black, with two white bars or marks, dark bill and legs. May 17, 1856
Maryland yellow throat heard afar in meadows, as I go along the road towards Hubbard’s Bridge. May 17, 1856
I see a female Maryland yellow-throat busily seeking its food amid the dangling fruit of the early aspen, in the top of the tree. May 17, 1860
Standing in the meadow near the early aspen at the island, I hear the first fluttering of leaves, - a peculiar sound, at first unaccountable to me. The breeze causes the now fully expanded aspen leaves to rustle with a pattering sound. It is much like a gentle surge breaking on a shore, or the rippling of waves. This is the first softer music which the wind draws from the forest. May 17, 1860
The Populus grandidentata now shows large, silvery, downy, but still folded, leafets. May 17, 1858
Meanwhile I hear a loud hum and see a splendid male hummingbird coming zigzag in long tacks, like a bee, but far swifter, along the edge of the swamp, in hot haste. He turns aside to taste the honey of the Andromeda calyculata (already visited by bees) within a rod of me. This golden-green gem. Its burnished back looks as if covered with green scales dusted with gold. It hovers, as it were stationary in the air, with an intense humming before each little flower-bell of the humble Andromeda calyculata, and inserts its long tongue in each, turning toward me that splendid ruby on its breast, that glowing ruby. May 17, 1856
The Viola palmata is out there, in the meadow. May 17, 1853
The Viola cucullata is sometimes eight inches high, and leaves in proportion. It must be the largest of the violets except perhaps the yellow. May 17, 1853
The V. blanda is almost entirely out of bloom at the spring. May 17, 1853
The Viola lanceolata seems to pass into the cucullata insensibly, but can that small round-leaved white violet now so abundantly in blossom in open low ground be the same with that large round-leaved one now about out of blossom in shady low ground? May 17, 1853
The Viola sagittata, of which Viola ovata is made a variety, is now very marked there. May 17, 1853
The V. pedata there presents the greatest array of blue of any flower as yet. The flowers are so raised above their leaves, and so close together, that they make a more indelible impression of blue on the eye; it is almost dazzling. May 17, 1853
Ranunculus repens perhaps yesterday, with its spotted leaves and its not recurved calyx though furrowed stem. May 17, 1853
How very beautiful, like the fairest flowers, the young black oak shoots with leaves an inch long now! . . . Methinks the black oak at early leafing is more red than the red oak. May 17, 1853
Most trees are beautiful when leafing out, but especially the birch. May 17, 1852
The birch leaves are so small that you see the landscape through the tree, and they are like silvery and green spangles in the sun, fluttering about the tree. May 17, 1852
The wooded shore is all lit up with the tender, bright green of birches fluttering in the wind and shining in the light, and red maple keys are seen at a distance against the tender green of birches and other trees. The birches burst out suddenly into leaf and make a great show . . . When the birches have put on their green sacks, then a new season has come. The light reflected from their tender yellowish green is like sunlight. May 17, 1854
The yellow birch catkins, now fully out or a little past prime, are very handsome now, numerous clusters of rich golden catkins hanging straight down at a height from the ground on the end of the pendulous branches, amid the just expanding leaf-buds. May 17, 1857
It rains gently from time to time as I walk . . . This rain is good for thought. It is especially agreeable to me as I enter the wood and hear the soothing dripping on the leaves. It domiciliates me in nature. The woods are the more like a house for the rain; the few slight noises sound more hollow in them; the birds hop nearer; the very trees seem still and pensive . . .You are more than paid for a wet coat and feet . . . by the increased fragrance and more gem-like character of expanding buds and leafets in the rain. All vegetation is now fuller of life and expression. May 17, 1858
While I was measuring the tree, Puffer came along, and I had a long talk with him, standing under the tree in the cool sprinkling rain till we shivered. May 17, 1858
After a storm at this season, 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 17, 1852
Waked up at 2.30 by the peep of robins, which were aroused by a fire at the pail-factory about two miles west. I hear that the air was full of birds singing thereabouts. It rained gently at the same time, though not steadily. May 17, 1855
Does not summer begin after the May storm? May 17, 1852
Does not summer begin after the May storm? May 17, 1852
*****
May 17, 2021
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reflections
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Violets
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ranunculus Repens
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring Leaf-out
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birches.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aspens
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Big-toothed Aspen
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Yellow Birch
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Veery(Wilson's thrush)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Eastern Wood Pewee
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Parti-Colored (Parula) Warbler (Sylvia Americana)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.
May 17, 2023
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next,
and the season and life itself is prolonged.
May 17, 2024
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/HDT17May
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