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
The seasons admit
of infinite degrees in
their revolutions.
The rain comes at a
time and place that baffles all
our calculations.
Suddenly the gust
big drops slanting from the north –
birds fly rudderless.
Puddles in the streets.
The first rain of consequence
for at least three weeks.
June 19, 2020
The other day I rowed in my boat a free, even lovely young lady, and, as I plied the oars, she sat in the stern, and there was nothing but she between me and the sky. June 19, 1840
We saw the beautiful wild rose of a deep red color, in blossom, – a rich sight; islands of rose bushes with a profusion of flowers and buds. How suddenly they have expanded! They are first seen in abundance in meadows. Is not this the carnival of the year, when the swamp rose and wild pink are in bloom, the last stage before blueberries come? June 19, 1852
I see large patches of blue-eyed grass in the meadow across the river from my window. June 19, 1853
I think I saw a young crow now fully grown. June 19, 1853
The devil's-needles now abound in wood-paths and about the Ripple Lakes. Even if your eyes were shut you would know they were there, hearing the rustling of their wings as they flit by in pursuit of one another. June 19, 1860
The strain of the bobolink now begins to sound a little rare. It never again fills the air as the first week after its arrival. June 19, 1853
These are peculiar days when you find the purple orchis and the arethusa, too, in the meadows. June 19, 1852
Found one of the purple orchises in an open meadow. . . The orchis keeps well. One put in my hat this morning, and carried all day, will last fresh a day or two at home. These are peculiar days when you find the purple orchis and the arethusa, too, in the meadows. June 19, 1852
Now, half-way up this hill, we struck into a thick wood, which, descending, turned into a thicker swamp . . . the most intricate swamp of all, high on the side of a hill and wide. I climbed a yellow birch covered with lichens, looking as if dead, and another, whence I saw a larch red with cones, but could not see out; but, steering by the sun, at length came out right, on Flag Hill, in the southeast corner of Boxboro. June 19, 1852
At length the thunder seems to roll quite across the sky and all round the horizon, even where there are no clouds, and I row homeward in haste. June 19, 1854
Now by magic the skirts of the cloud are gathered about us, and it shoots forward over our head, and the rain comes at a time and place which baffles all our calculations. June 19, 1854
Suddenly comes the gust, and the big drops slanting from the north, and the birds fly as if rudderless, and the trees bow and are wrenched. It rains against the windows like hail and is blown over the roofs like steam or smoke. June 19, 1854
It runs down the large elm at Holbrook's and shatters the house near by. June 19, 1854
Soon silver puddles shine in the streets. This the first rain of consequence for at least three weeks. June 19, 1854
Heard my night-warbler on a solitary white pine in the Heywood Clearing by the Peak. Discovered it at last, looking like a small piece of black bark curving partly over the limb. No fork to its tail. It appeared black beneath; was very shy, not bigger than a yellowbird, and very slender.
See an oven-bird's nest with two eggs and one young one just hatched. The bird flits out low, and is, I think, the same kind that I saw flit along the ground and trail her wings to lead me off day before yesterday. June 19, 1858
In the middle of the path to Wharf Rock at Flint's Pond, the nest of a Wilson's thrush, five or six inches high, between the green stems of three or four golden rods, made of dried grass or fibres of bark, with dry oak leaves attached loosely, making the whole nine or ten inches wide, to deceive the eye. Two blue eggs. Like an accidental heap. Who taught it to do thus? June 19, 1853
Boys have found this forenoon at Flint’s Pond one or more veery-nests on the ground.
Also showed me . . . a slender clear-blue egg, more slender and pointed at the small end than the robin's, and he says the bird was thrush like with a pencilled breast. It is probably the wood thrush. June 19, 1858
A yellowbird’s nest saddled on a horizontal (or slanting down amid twigs) branch of a swamp white oak, within reach, six feet high, of fern do. June 19, 1855
The pine woods at Thrush Alley emit that hot dry scent, reminding me even of days when I used to go a-blackberrying.
A blue jay and a tanager come dashing into the pine under which I stand. The first flies directly away, screaming with suspicion or disgust, but the latter, more innocent, remains. June 19, 1853
The wood thrush sings as usual far in the wood. June 19, 1853
A flying squirrel's nest . . . south of Walden, on hilltop, in a covered hollow in a small old stump at base of a young oak June 19, 1859
Facts collected by a poet are set down at last as winged seeds of truth, samaræ, tinged with his expectation . . . Facts fall from the poetic observer as ripe seeds. June 19, 1852
What subtile differences between one season and another! The warmest weather has, perchance, arrived and the longest days, but not the driest . . . The seasons admit of infinite degrees in their revolutions. June 19, 1852
*****
February 18, 1852 ("I have a commonplace-book for facts and another for poetry, but I find it difficult always to preserve the vague distinction which I had in my mind, . ... I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant, ... I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all.")
June 6, 1857 (“Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting.”)
June 11, 1851 ("No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons. ")
November 9, 1851 ("I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic.”)
June 19, 2015
If you make the least correctobservation of nature this year,you will have occasion to repeat itwith illustrations the next,and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 19
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 © 2009-2022
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