P. M. —To Flint’s Pond.
The locust in graveyard shows but few blossoms yet.
It is very hot this afternoon, and that peculiar stillness of summer noons now reigns in the woods. I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground.
I think that this peculiar darkness of the shade, or of the foliage as seen between you and the sky, is not accounted for merely by saying that we have not yet got accustomed to clothed trees, but the leaves are rapidly acquiring a darker green, are more and more opaque, and, besides, the sky is lit with the intensest light. It reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer.
June 11, 2019
The red-eye sings incessant, and the more indolent yellow-throat vireo, and the creeper, and perhaps the redstart? or else it is the parti-colored warbler.
I perceive that scent from the young sweet-fern shoots and withered blossoms which made the first settlers of Concord to faint on their journey.
Saw yesterday a great yellow butterfly with black marks.
See under an apple tree, at entrance of Goose Pond Path from Walden road, a great fungus with hollow white stem, eight or nine inches high, whose black funereal top has melted this morning, leaving a black centre with thin white scales on it.
All the cistuses are shut now that I see, and also the veiny-leaved hieracium with one leaf on its stem, not long open.
I notice no white lily pads near the bathing-rock in Flint’s Pond. See a bream’s nest two and a quarter feet diameter, laboriously scooped out, and the surrounding bottom for a diameter of eight feet (! !) comparatively white and clean, while all beyond is mud and leaves, etc., and a very large green and cupreous bream with a centre, while half a dozen shiners are hovering about, apparently watching a chance to steal the spawn.
A partridge with young in the Saw Mill Brook path. Could hardly tell what kind of creature it was at first, it made such a noise and fluttering amid the weeds and bushes. Finally ran off with its body flat and wings somewhat spread.
Utricularia vulgaris very abundant in Everett’s Pool.
A beautiful grass-green snake about fifteen inches long, light beneath, with a yellow space under the eyes along the edge of the upper jaw.
The Rubus triflorus apparently out of bloom at Saw Mill, before the high blackberry has begun.
Rice tells me he found a turtle dove’s nest on an apple tree near his farm in Sudbury two years ago, with white eggs; so thin a bottom you could see the eggs through.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 11, 1856
The locust in graveyard shows but few blossoms yet. See June 7, 1854 ("The locusts so full of pendulous white racemes five inches long, filling the air with their sweetness and resounding with the hum of humble and honey bees"); June 9, 1852 ("The locust in bloom"); June 10, 1853 ("The locust bloom is now perfect, filling the street with its sweetness."); June 12, 1852 ("The locusts' blossoms in the graveyard fill the street with their sweet fragrance.")
I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground. See June 2, 1854 ("These virgin shades of the year . . . how full of promise! I would fain be present at the birth of shadow. It takes place with the first expansion of the leaves."); June 4, 1860 (" A grateful but thin shade . . .so open that we see the fluttering of each leaf in its shadow.”)
I think that this peculiar darkness of the shade . . . reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer. See June 9. 1856 ("Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath. It suggests houses that lie under the shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer."); May 29, 1857 ("The sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June.") See also May 27, 1859 ("The dark river, now that shades are increased, is like the dark eye of a maiden.") and note to June 6, 1855 ("The dark eye and shade of June.”)
The red-eye sings incessant. See June 11, 1852 ("The red-eye sings now in the woods, perhaps more than any other bird. “); June 12, 1853 ("The red-eyed vireo is the bird most commonly heard in the woods.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red-eyed Vireo
The more indolent yellow-throat vireo. See May 19, 1856 ("A yellow-throated vireo . . . singing indolently, ullia — eelya, and sometimes varied to eelyee.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-throated Vireo
Saw yesterday a great yellow butterfly with black marks. See June 3, 1859 ("A large yellow butterfly . . . three and a half to four inches in expanse. Pale-yellow, the front wings crossed by three or four black bars; rear, or outer edge, of all wings widely bordered with black, and some yellow behind it; a short black tail to each hind one, with two blue spots in front of two red-brown ones on the tail"); June 14, 1860 ("I see near at hand two of those large yellow (and black) butterflies . . . a small and slender swallow tail with reddish brown and blue at the tail; body black above and yellow along the sides. (C. says it is the Papilio Turnus of Say.)")
All the cistuses are shut now that I see. See May 30, 1853 ("The cistus out, probably yesterday, a simple and delicate flower, its stamens all swept to one side. It upholds a delicate saffron-golden (?) basin about nine inches from the ground."); June 3, 1854 ("The cistus is well out on the Cliffs; maybe several days."); June 7, 1855 ("Cistus, apparently yesterday, open.")
The veiny-leaved hieracium with one leaf on its stem, not long open. See June 15, 1851 ("The Hieracium venosum, veiny-leaved hawkweed, with its yellow blossoms in the woodland path."); August 21, 1851 ("I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Hawkweeds (hieracium)
A partridge with young in the Saw Mill Brook path. See June 14, 1858 ("Young partridges, when?"); June 27, 1852 ("I meet the partridge with her brood in the woods . . . She spreads her tail into a fan and beats the ground with her wings fearlessly within a few feet of me, to attract my attention while her young disperse.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge
A beautiful grass-green snake about fifteen inches long, light beneath, with a yellow space under the eyes along the edge of the upper jaw. See May 19, 1860 (“See a green snake, a very vivid yellow green, of the same color with the tender foliage at present, and as if his colors had been heightened by the rain.”); May 9, 1852 ("See a green snake, twenty or more inches long, on a bush, hanging over a twig with its head held forward six inches into the air, without support and motionless.”)
The Rubus triflorus apparently out of bloom at Saw Mill. See May 21, 1856 ("Rubus triflorus abundantly out at the Saw Mill Brook; how long?"); June 30, 1854 ("Rubus triflorus berries, some time, — the earliest fruit of a rubus.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry
June 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 11
This hot afternoon
the stillness of summer noons
in the shady woods.
Cumuli drifting
in the intensely blue sky –
glowing white borders.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Great cumuli slowly drifting
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-560611
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