How much life the note of the bobolink imparts to the meadow!

May 12. A glorious day.

 
P. M. —Walked round by Dennis’s and Hollowell place with Alcott. 

It is suddenly very warm. A washing day, with a slight haze accompanying the strong, warm wind. 

I see, in the road beyond Luther Hosmer’s, in different places, two bank swallows which were undoubtedly killed by the four days’ northeast rain we have just had. 

Puffer says he has seen two or three dead sparrows also. The sudden heat compels us to sit in the shade at the bars above Puffer's, whence we hear the first bobolink. 

How suddenly the birds arrive after the storm, — even yesterday before it was fairly over, —as if they had foreseen its end! How much life the note of the bobolink imparts to the meadow! 

I see a cultivated cherry in bloom, and Prichard’s Canada plum will probably bloom to-morrow. 

The river is higher than yesterday, about the same as when highest before this spring, and goes no higher. Thus attains its height the day after the rain.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 12, 1856

A glorious day. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

 A washing day, with a slight haze accompanying the strong, warm wind. See May 10, 1857 ("It is a washing day. I love the wind at last."); May 17, 1852 ("Decidedly fair weather at last; a bright, breezy, flowing, washing day."); May 19, 1854 ("A washing day, — a strong rippling wind, and all things bright."); May 22, 1853 ("This is the third windy day following the two days’ rain. A washing day, such as we always have at this season"); May 30, 1852 ("Now is the summer come. A breezy, washing day.")

The sudden heat compels us to sit in the shade. See May 17, 1858 (" Puffer came along, and I had a long talk with him, standing under the tree in the cool sprinkling rain till we shivered.”)

We hear the first bobolink. See May 6, 1857 ("While at work I hear the bobolink.”);  May 10, 1853 ("All at once a strain that sounds like old times and recalls a hundred associations. Not at once do I remember that a year has elapsed since I heard it, and then the idea of the bobolink is formed in my mind.”); May 13, 1855 ("As we float down the river through the still and hazy air, enjoying the June-like warmth, . . . the sound of the first bobolink floats to us from over the meadows."); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower. And bobolinks tinkle in the air. Nature now is perfectly genial to man.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

How suddenly the birds arrive after the storm. See May 7, 1852 ("The birds I have lately mentioned come not singly, as the earliest, but all at once,");  May 8, 1857 ("Summer has suddenly come upon us, and the birds all together.")   May 10, 1858 ("It is remarkable how many new birds have come all at once to-day.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Summer and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. The Birds of May

I see a cultivated cherry in bloom, and Prichard’s Canada plum will probably bloom to-morrow. See May 5, 1855 ("Canada plum and cultivated cherry and Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow.");  May 10, 1856 ("Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.") 

May 12. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 12

How suddenly the

birds arrive after the storm –

a glorious day.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The note of the bobolink

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 © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560512