The navel of the universe

May 31. 

Gowing's Swamp
August 23, 1854

P. M. — To Gowing's Swamp and to Pinus resinosa.

In the ditches in Moore's Swamp on the new Bedford road, the myriads of pollywogs, now three quarters of an inch long, crowding close to the edge, make a continuous black edging to the pool a foot wide. I see where thousands have been left high and dry and are now trodden into the sand, yet preserving their forms, spotting it with black. The water looks too full of yellowish sediment to support them. 

That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp is its very navel, omphalos, where the umbilical cord was cut that bound it to creation's womb. Methinks every swamp tends to have or suggests such an interior tender spot. The sphagnous crust that surrounds the pool is pliant and quaking, like the skin or muscles of the abdomen; you seem to be slumping into the very bowels of the swamp. 

Some seem to have been here to collect sphagnum, either for wells, or to wrap plants in. 

There grow the white spruce and the larch. The spruce cones, though now erect, at length turn down. The sterile flowers on lower twigs around stand up now three quarters of an inch long, open and reddish-brown. 

Andromeda Polifolia, much past its prime. 

I detect no hairy huckleberry. 

The Vaccinium Oxycoccus is almost in bloom! and has grown three inches; is much in advance of the common. 

The Pinus resinosa not yet out; will be apparently with the rigida. It has no fertile flowers or cones. The sterile flower-buds are dark-purple, while those of the rigida there are light-green. The largest tree is about ten inches in diameter. It is distinguished, at a distance even, by its lighter-colored and smoother or flatter bark. It is also very straight and perpendicular, with its branches in regular whorls, and its needles are very long. 

Rhodora now in its prime. 

I see in open land a hollow circle of Lycopodium dendroideum, ten feet in diameter; some of the inner portion is dead. This too, then, like the flowering fern, grows or spreads in circles. 

Also the cinnamon fern grows in circles. 

See an ants' nest, just begun, which covers the grass with sand for more than ten feet in one direction and seven in the other and is thickly pierced with holes.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 31, 1857


In the ditches in Moore's Swamp on the new Bedford road, the myriads of pollywogs, now three quarters of an inch long . . . See note to May 19, 1857 ("See myriads of minute pollywogs, recently hatched, in the water of Moore's Swamp.")

That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp . . . See  August 23, 1854 ("There is in the middle an open pool, twenty or thirty feet in diameter,. . .an abrupt edge next the water, this on a dense bed of quaking sphagnum, in which I sink eighteen inches in water, upheld by its matted roots, where I fear to break through. On this the spatulate sundew abounds."); August 30, 1856 ("Consider how remote and novel that swamp. Beneath it is a quaking bed of sphagnum, and in it grow Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, menyanthes (or buck -bean), Gaylussacia dumosa, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, — plants which scarcely a citizen of Concord ever sees.")

Andromeda Polifolia, much past its prime. See May 24, 1855 ("Andromeda Polifolia now in prime. . . . "); May 24, 1854 ("Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime. . .A timid botanist would never pluck it."); February 17, 1854 ("In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore. . . . in the middle or deepest part will be an open space not yet quite given up to water, where the Andromeda calyculata and a few A. Polifolia reign almost alone. These are pleasing gardens.”)

Note HDT first discoverd Andromeda Polifolia on July 14, 1853 at Beck Stow’s Swamp (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. “) On February 17, 1854 he first records finding it at Gowing’s Swamp. On November 15,1857 he finds ‘plenty 'at Miles swamp [Ledum Swamp]. See Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts

The sterile flowers on lower twigs around stand up now three quarters of an inch long, open and reddish-brown. See May 25, 1857 ("The white spruce cones are cylindrical and have an entire firm edge to the scales, and the needles are longer."); June 10, 1855 (" The white spruce cones are now a rich dark purple, more than a half inch long.")")

May 31. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 31

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 © 2009-2021

Meditations under a rock in a shower.

May 30. 

P. M. — To chestnut oaks. 

May 30, 2017

I think that there are many chestnut-sided warblers this season. They are pretty tame. One sits within six feet of me, though not still. He is much painted up. 

Blue-stemmed goldenrod is already a foot high. 

I see the geranium and two-leaved Solomon's-seal out, the last abundant. The red pyrus by the path, not yet, but probably the same elsewhere. 

The young black oak leafets are dark red or reddish, thick and downy; the scarlet oak also are somewhat reddish, thick and downy, or thin and green and little downy, like red oak, but rather more deeply cut; the red oak broad, thin, green and not downy; the white pink-red. 

Was it not a whip-poor-will I scared up at the base of a bush in the woods to-day, that went off with a clumsy flight? 

By the path near the northeast shore of Flint's Pond, just before reaching the wall by the brook, I see what I take to be an uncommonly large Uvularia sessilifolia flower, but, looking again, am surprised to find it the Uvularia perfoliata, which I have not found hereabouts before. It is a taller and much more erect plant than the other, with a larger flower, methinks. It is considerably past its prime and probably began with the other. 

Chestnut oak not yet in bloom, though the black and scarlet are well out in ordinary places. Its young leaves have a reddish-brown tinge. All the large trees are cut down. 

The white oak is not out. 

It is remarkable that many beach and chestnut oak leaves, which so recently expanded, have already attained their full size! How they launch themselves forth to the light! How suddenly Nature spreads her umbrellas! How little delay in expanding leaves! They seem to expand before our eyes, like the wings of moths just fallen from the cocoon. 

Buttercups thickly spot the churchyard. 

Perhaps I could write meditations under a rock in a shower. 

When first I had sheltered myself under the rock, I began at once to look out on the pond with new eyes, as from my house. I was at Lee's Cliff as I had never been there before, had taken up my residence there, as it were. Ordinarily we make haste away from all opportunities to be where we have instinctively endeavored to get. 

When the storm was over where I was, and only a few thin drops were falling around me, I plainly saw the rear of the rain withdrawing over the Lincoln woods south of the pond, and, above all, heard the grand rushing sound made by the rain falling on the freshly green forest, a very different sound when thus heard at a distance from what it is when we are in the midst of it. In the latter case we are soothed by a gentle pattering and do not suspect the noise which a rain storm makes. 

This Cliff thus became my house. I inhabited it. When, at length, it cleared up, it was unexpectedly early and light, and even the sun came out and shone warm on my back as I went home. Large puddles occupied the cart-paths and rose above the grass in the fields. 

In the midst of the shower, though it was not raining very hard, a black and white creeper came and in spected the limbs of a tree before my rock, in his usual zigzag, prying way, head downward often, and when it thundered loudest, heeded it not. Birds appear to be but little incommoded by the rain. Yet they do not often sing in it. 

The blue sky is never more celestial to our eyes than when it is first seen here and there between the clouds at the end of a storm, — a sign of speedy fair weather. I saw clear blue patches for twenty minutes or more in the southwest before I could leave my covert, for still I saw successive fine showers falling between me and the thick glaucous white pine beneath.

I think that such a projection as this, or a cave, is the only effectual protection that nature affords us against the storm. 

I sang "Tom Bowling" there in the midst of the rain, and the dampness seemed to be favorable to my voice. There was a slight rainbow on my way home. 

Met Conant riding home, who had been caught in town and detained, though he had an umbrella. 

Already a spider or other insect had drawn together the just expanded leaves of a hickory before my door with its web within them, making a close tent. This twig extended under my rocky roof and was quite dry. 

Probably a portion of the Cliff, being undermined by rain, had anciently fallen out and left this rocky roof above.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1857

Buttercups thickly spot the churchyard. See May 27, 1853 ("The buttercups in the church-yard and on some hillsides are now looking more glossy and bright than ever after the rain.”); June 2, 1852 (“Buttercups now spot the churchyard.”)

Perhaps I could write meditations under a rock in a shower. See August 13, 1853 (“Could I not write meditations under a bridge at midsummer?”)

The blue sky is never more celestial to our eyes than when it is first seen here and there between the clouds at the end of a storm. See January 7, 1851 ("The life, the joy, that is in blue sky after a storm!")

I began at once to look out on the pond with new eyes, as from my house. I was at Lee's Cliff as I had never been there before . . .See June 13, 1854 ("When I have stayed out thus late many miles from home, and have heard a cricket beginning to chirp louder near me in the grass I have felt that I was not far from home after all, -- began to be weaned from my village home."); May 23, 1853 ("[A] certain lateeness ... releases me from the obligation to return in any particular season. I have passed the Rubicon of staying out. ...I will wander further from what I have called my home - to the home which is forever inviting me. In such an hour the freedom of the woods is offered me")

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

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 © 2009-2021

I seek a shelter under the Cliffs.

May 29.

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff. 

A fine-grained air, June-like, after a cloudy, rain- threatening or rainy morning. Sufficient with a still, clear air in which the hum of insects is heard, and the sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. The grass is not yet dry. The birds sing more lively than ever now after the rain, though it is only 2 p. m. 

On the Corner road I overtake a short, thick-set young man dressed in thick blue clothes, with a large basket of scions, etc., on his arm, who has just come from Newton in the cars and is going to graft for Lafayette Garfield, thus late. He does not think much of the Baldwin, and still less of the Porter. The last is too sour! and, above all, does not bear well! ! Has set more scions of Williams' Favorite than of any other, and thinks much of Seaver's apple, a sweeting, etc. Verily, it is all de gustibus. Having occasion to speak of his father, who had been unfortunate, he said, " We boys (his sons) clubbed together and bought the old fellow a farm" just before he died. He had a very broad, round face, and short front teeth half buried in the gums, for he exposed the whole of his gums when he opened his mouth. 

I think I have noticed that coarse-natured farmers' boys, etc., have not a sufficiently fine and delicate taste to appreciate a high-flavored apple. It is commonly too acid for them, and they prefer some tame, sweet thing, fit only for baking, as a pumpkin sweeting. 

Men derive very various nutriment from the same nature, their common habitat, like plants. Some derive, as it were directly from the soil, a brawny body, and their cheeks bulge out like pumpkin sweetings. They seem more thoroughly naturalized here, and the elements are kinder to them. They have more of the wind and rain and meadow muck in their composition. They flourish in the swampy soil like vegetables and do not fear toothache or neuralgia. Some grow like a pumpkin pine, at least. They fish and hunt and get the meadow-hay. Compared with ordinary men, they grow like a Rohan potato beside a Lady's-Finger. Their system has great power of assimilation. The soil is native to them. As different elements go to the composition of two human bodies as the thoughts that occupy their brains are different. How much more readily one nature assimilates to beef and potatoes and makes itself a brawny body of them, than another! 

We sat and talked a spell at the Corner Spring. 

What is the new warbler I see and hear frequently now, with apparently a black head, white side-head, brown back, forked tail, and light legs? 

The sun came out an hour or more ago, rapidly drying the foliage, and for the first time this year I noticed the little shades produced by the foliage which had expanded in the rain, and long narrow dark lines of shade along the hedges or willow-rows. It was like the first bright flashings of an eye from under dark eyelashes after shedding warm tears. 

Now I see a great dark low-arching cloud in the northwest already dropping rain there and steadily sweeping southeast, as I go over the first Conantum Hill from the spring. But I trust that its southwest end will drift too far north to strike me. The rest of the sky is quite serene, sprinkled here and there with bright downy, glowing summer clouds. The grass was not yet dried before this angry summer-shower cloud appeared. 

I go on, uncertain whether it is broad or thin and whether its heel will strike me or not. How universal that strawberry-like fragrance of the fir-balsam cone and wilted twig! My meadow fragrance (also perceived on hillsides) reminds me of it. Methinks that the fragrance of the strawberry may stand for a large class of odors, as the terebinthine odors of firs and arbor-vitae and cedar (as the harp stands for music). There is a certain sting to it, as to them. 

Black shrub oaks well out. 

Oxalis stricta. 

The Veronica serpyllifolia, now erect, is commonly found in moist depressions or hollows in the pastures, where perchance a rock has formerly been taken out and the grass is somewhat thicker and deeper green; also in the grassy ruts of old, rarely used cart-paths.

Red and black oaks are out at Lee's Cliff, well out, and already there are crimson spots on the red oak leaves. Also the fine red mammilla galls stud the black cherry leaves. Galls begin with the very unfolding of the leaves. 

Solomon’s Seal
5/20/2017
(avesong)

The Polygonatum pubescens out there. 

Some, nay most, Turritis stricta quite out of bloom. 

Fair Haven Lake now, at 4.30 p. m., is perfectly smooth, reflecting the darker and glowing June clouds as it has not before. Fishes incessantly dimple it here and there, and I see afar, approaching steadily but diagonally toward the shore of the island, some creature on its surface, maybe a snake, — but my glass shows it to be a muskrat, leaving two long harrow-like ripples behind. Soon after, I see another, quite across the pond on the Baker Farm side, and even distinguish that to be a muskrat. The fishes, methinks, are busily breeding now. These things I see as I sit on the top of Lee's Cliff, looking into the light and dark eye of the lake. 

The heel of that summer-shower cloud, seen through the trees in the west, has extended further south and looks more threatening than ever. As I stand on the rocks, examining the blossoms of some forward black oaks which close overhang it, I think I hear the sound of flies against my hat. No, it is scattered raindrops, though the sky is perfectly clear above me, and the cloud from which they come is yet far on one side. 

I see through the tree-tops the thin vanguard of the storm scaling the celestial ramparts, like eager light infantry, or cavalry with spears advanced. But from the west a great, still, ash-colored cloud comes on. The drops fall thicker, and I seek a shelter under the Cliffs. 

I stand under a large projecting portion of the Cliff, where there is ample space above and around, and I can move about as perfectly protected as under a shed. To be sure, fragments of rock look as if they would fall, but I see no marks of recent ruin about me. 

Soon I hear the low all-pervading hum of an approaching hummingbird circling above the rock, which afterward I mistake several times for the gruff voices of men approaching, unlike as these sounds are in some respects, and I perceive the resemblance even when I know better. Now I am sure it is a hummingbird, and now that it is two farmers approaching. But presently the hum becomes more sharp and thrilling, and the little fellow suddenly perches on an ash twig within a rod of me, and plumes himself while the rain is fairly beginning. He is quite out of proportion to the size of his perch. It does not acknowledge his weight. 

I sit at my ease and look out from under my lichen-clad rocky roof, half-way up the Cliff, under freshly leafing ash and hickory trees on to the pond, while the rain is falling faster and faster, and I am rather glad of the rain, which affords me this experience. The rain has compelled me to find the cosiest and most homelike part of all the Cliff. 

The surface of the pond, though the rain dimples it all alike and I perceive no wind, is still divided into irregular darker and lighter spaces, with distinct boundaries, as it were watered all over. Even now that it rains very hard and the surface is all darkened, the boundaries of those spaces are not quite obliterated. The countless drops seem to spring again from its surface like stalagmites. 

A mosquito, sole living inhabitant of this antrum, settles on my hand. I find here sheltered with me a sweet-briar growing in a cleft of the rock above my head, where perhaps some bird or squirrel planted it. Mulleins beneath. Galium Aparine, just begun to bloom, growing next the rock; and, in the earth-filled clefts, columbines, some of whose cornucopias strew the ground. Ranunculus bulbosus in bloom; saxifrage; and various ferns, as spleenwort, etc. Some of these plants are never rained on. I perceive the buttery-like scent of barberry bloom from over the rock, and now and for some days the bunches of effete white ash anthers strew the ground. 

It lights up a little, and the drops fall thinly again, and the birds begin to sing, but now I see a new shower coming up from the southwest, and the wind seems to have changed somewhat. Already I had heard the low mutterings of its thunder — for this is a thunder- shower — in the midst of the last. It seems to have shifted its quarters merely to attack me on a more exposed side of my castle. Two foes appear where I had expected none. But who can calculate the tactics of the storm? 

It is a first regular summer thunder-shower, preceded by a rush of wind, and I begin to doubt if my quarters will prove a sufficient shelter. I am fairly besieged and know not when I shall escape. I hear the still roar of the rushing storm at a distance, though no trees are seen to wave. 

And now the forked flashes descending to the earth succeed rapidly to the hollow roars above, and down comes the deluging rain. I hear the alarmed notes of birds flying to a shelter. The air at length is cool and chilly, the atmosphere is darkened, and I have forgotten the smooth pond and its reflections. The rock feels cold to my body, as if it were a different season of the year. 

I almost repent of having lingered here; think how far I should have got if I had started homeward. But then what a condition I should have been in! Who knows but the lightning will strike this cliff and topple the rocks down on me? The crashing thunder sounds like the overhauling of lumber on heaven's loft. 

And now, at last, after an hour of steady confinement, the clouds grow thin again, and the birds begin to sing. They make haste to conclude the day with their regular evening songs (before the rain is fairly over) according to the program. 

The pepe on some pine tree top was heard almost in the midst of the storm. One or two bullfrogs trump. They care not how wet it is. 

Again I hear the still rushing, all-pervading roar of the withdrawing storm, when it is at least half a mile off, wholly beyond the pond, though no trees are seen to wave. It is simply the sound of the countless drops falling on the leaves and the ground. You were not aware what a sound the rain made. 

Several times I attempt to leave my shelter, but return to it. My first stepping abroad seems but a signal for the rain to commence again. Not till after an hour and a half do I escape. After all, my feet and legs are drenched by the wet grass.

Those great hickory buds, how much they contained! You see now the large reddish scales turned back at the base of the new twigs. Suddenly the buds burst, and those large pinnate leaves stretched forth in various directions. 

I see and hear the cuckoo. The Salix nigra, apparently several days, at Corner Bridge. Many of the black spruce have the terminal twigs dead. They are a slow-growing tree. 

It is encouraging to see thrifty-growing white pines by their side, which have added three feet to their height the last year. 

With all this opportunity, this comedy and tragedy, how near all men come to doing nothing! 

It is strange that they did not make us more intense and emphatic, that they do not goad us into some action. Generally, with all our desires and restlessness, we are no more likely to embark in any enterprise than a tree is to walk to a more favorable locality. The seaboard swarms with adventurous and rowdy fellows, but how unaccountably they train and are held in check! They are as likely to be policemen as anything. It exhausts their wits and energy merely to get their living, and they can do no more. 

The Americans are very busy and adventurous sailors, but all in somebody's employ, — as hired men. I have not heard of one setting out in his own bark, if only to run down our own coast on a voyage of adventure or observation, on his own account. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1857

The shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. See June 4, 1855 ("dark shadows on field and wood are the more remarkable by contrast with the light yellow-green foliage now, and when they rest on evergreens they are doubly dark, like dark rings about the eyes of June."); 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.”); June 11, 1856 (“I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground. . . . It reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer.”). See also .note to June 6, 1855 ("The dark eye and shade of June”).

Looking into the light and dark eye of the lake. See June 26, 1852 ("The smooth reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the ice is just melted. Those liquid eyes of nature, blue or black or even hazel, deep or shallow, clear or turbid; green next the shore, the color of their iris.”)
The Veronica serpyllifolia, now erect, is commonly found in moist depressions ... See May 12, 1857 ("Veronica serpyllifolia is abundantly out at Corner Spring”); May 17, 1856 ("Veronica serpylléfolia abundant now on banks, erected.”)

Ranunculus bulbosus in bloom. See May 29, 1859 ("The Ranunculus bulbosus are apparently in prime.")

Oxalis stricta.  May 26, 1852 ("Walking home from surveying, the fields are just beginning to be reddened with sorrel.”); May 22, 1854 (" . . the sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health, — all these things make earth now a paradise.”)

The Polygonatum pubescens out there. See May 25, 1852 (“Polygonatum pubescens ready to bloom.”); May 22, 1856 (“Polygonatum pubescens at rock.”); May 21, 1856 ("The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already.”);  May 12, 1855 ("One flower of the Polygonatum pubescens open there [under Lee’s Cliff]; probably may shed pollen to-morrow.”).

Soon I hear the low all-pervading hum of an approaching hummingbird circling above the rock . . See May 17, 1856 ("There, along with me in the deep, wild swamp . . . Its hum was heard afar at first, like that of a large bee, bringing a larger summer.”)

It is a first regular summer thunder-shower, preceded by a rush of wind . . . See May 10, 1857 (" a sudden shower with some thunder and lightning; the first.")

The ground is strewn with apple blossoms.

May 28.

May 28, 2017

Rain again in the night, and this forenoon, more or less. In some places the ground is strewn with apple blossoms, quite concealing it, as white and thick as if a snow-storm had occurred.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1857

Apple blossoms . . . as white and thick as if a snow-storm had occurred. See May 28, 1855 (“The apple bloom is very rich now.”); May 27 1852 ("The road is white with the apple blossoms fallen off, as with snowflakes.”); May 27, 1857 ("This is blossom week, beginning last Sunday (the 24th).”); and note to May 25, 1852 (It is blossom week with the apples.”).

May 28. SeeA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

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 ©  2009-2021

May Training

alternate-leaf dogwood
May 27, 2017

May 27. 

P. M. — To Hill. 

I hear the sound of fife and drum the other side of the village, and am reminded that it is May Training. Some thirty young men are marching in the streets in two straight sections, with each a very heavy and warm cap for the season on his head and a bright red stripe down the legs of his pantaloons, and at their head march two with white stripes down their pants, one beating a drum, the other blowing a fife. 

I see them all standing in a row by the side of the street in front of their captain's residence, with a dozen or more ragged boys looking on, but presently they all remove to the opposite side, as it were with one consent, not being satisfied with their former position, which probably had its disadvantages. 

Thus they march and strut the better part of the day, going into the tavern two or three times, to abandon themselves to unconstrained positions out of sight, and at night they may be seen going home singly with swelling breasts. 

When I first saw them as I was ascending the Hill, they were going along the road to the Battle-Ground far away under the hill, a fifer and a drummer to keep each other company and spell one another. Ever and anon the drum sounded more hollowly loud and distinct, as if they had just emerged from a subterranean passage, though it was only from behind some barn, and following close behind I could see two platoons of awful black beavers, rising just above the wall, where the warriors were stirring up the dust of Winter Street, passing Ex-Captain Abel Heywood's house, probably with trailed arms. 

There might have been some jockey in their way, spending his elegant leisure teaching his horse to stand fire, or trying to run down an orphan boy. 

I also hear, borne down the river from time to time, regular reports of small arms from Sudbury or Wayland, where they are probably firing by platoons. 

May 27, 2017

Celtis occidentalis, perhaps yesterday. How the staminate flowers drop off, even before opening! 

I perceived that rare meadow fragrance on the 25th. Is it not the sweet-scented vernal grass? [Think not, but perceive that in any case.] I see what I have called such, now very common. 

The earliest thorn on hill, a day or more. 

Hemlock, apparently a day or two. 

Some butternut catkins; the leaves have been touched by frost. 

This is blossom week, beginning last Sunday (the 24th). 

At evening, the first bat.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 27, 1857

I perceived that rare meadow fragrance on the 25th. See May 27, 1856 ("Often perceived the meadow fragrance. . . .”);May 27, 1855 ("The meadow fragrance to-day.”)

Some butternut catkins . . .See May 24, 1855 (“Butternut pollen, apparently a day or two”).

This is blossom week. See May 27 1852 ("The road is white with the apple blossoms fallen off, as with snowflakes.”) and note to May 25, 1852 (It is blossom week with the apples.”).

At evening, the first bat. See May 9, 1853 (“The first bat goes suddenly zigzag overhead through the dusky air; comes out of the dusk and disappears into it.”)

At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air.

May 26. 

Pink azalea in garden. 

Mountain-ash a day; also horse-chestnut the same. Beach plum well out, several days at least. 

Wood pewee, and Minott heard a loon go laughing over this morning. 

The vireo days have fairly begun. They are now heard amid the elm-tops. 

Thin coats and straw hats are worn. I have noticed that notional nervous invalids, who report to the community the exact condition of their heads and stomachs every morning, as if they alone were blessed or cursed with these parts; who are old betties and quiddles, if men; who can't eat their break fasts when they are ready, but play with their spoons, and hanker after an ice-cream at irregular hours; who go more than half-way to meet any invalidity, and go to bed to be sick on the slightest occasion, in the middle of the brightest forenoon, — improve the least opportunity to be sick ; — I observe that such are self-indulgent persons, without any regular and absorbing employment. They are nice, discriminating, experienced in all that relates to bodily sensations. They come to you stroking their wens, manipulating their ulcers, and expect you to do the same for them. Their religion and humanity stick. They spend the day manipulating their bodies and doing no work; can never get their nails clean. 

Some of the earliest willows about warm edges of woods are gone to seed and downy. 

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. 

It is very hazy after a sultry morning, but the wind is getting east and cool. 

The oaks are in the gray, or a little more, and the silvery leafets of the deciduous trees invest the woods like a permanent mist. At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air. 

I see the common small reddish butterflies. 

Very interesting now are the red tents of expanding- oak leaves, as you go through sprout-lands, — the crimson velvet of the black oak and the more pinkish white oak. The salmon and pinkish-red canopies or umbrellas of the white oak are particularly interesting. 

The very sudden expansion of the great hickory buds, umbrella-wise. 

Now, at last, all leaves dare unfold, and twigs begin to shoot. 

As I am going down the footpath from Britton's camp to the spring, I start a pair of nighthawks (they had the white on the wing) from amid the dry leaves at the base of a bush, a bunch of sprouts, and away they flitted in zigzag noiseless flight a few rods through the sprout-land, dexterously avoiding the twigs, uttering a faint hollow what, as if made by merely closing the bill, and one alighted flat on a stump. 

On those carpinus trees which have fertile flowers, the sterile are effete and drop off. 

The red choke-berry not in bloom, while the black is, for a day or more at least. 

Roadside near Britton's camp, see a grosbeak, apparently female of the rose-breasted, quite tame, as usual, brown above, with black head and a white streak over the eye, a less distinct one beneath it, two faint bars on wings, dirty-white bill, white breast, dark spotted or streaked, and from time [to time] utters a very sharp chirp of alarm or interrogation as it peers through the twigs at me. 

May 26, 2018

A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. 

At Abel Brooks's (or Black Snake, or Red Cherry, or Rye) Hollow, hear the wood thrush. 

In Thrush Alley, see one of those large ant-hills, recently begun, the grass and moss partly covered with sand over a circle two feet in diameter, with holes two to five inches apart, and the dry sand is dark-spotted with the fresh damp sand about each hole. 

My mother was telling to-night of the sounds which she used to hear summer nights when she was young and lived on the Virginia Road, — the lowing of cows, or cackling of geese, or the beating of a drum as far off as Hildreth's, but above all Joe Merriam whistling to his team, for he was an admirable whistler. 

Says she used to get up at midnight and go and sit on the door-step when all in the house were asleep, and she could hear nothing in the world but the ticking of the clock in the house behind her.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 26, 1857

Pink azalea in garden. See May 26, 1860 ("Our pink azalea”); May 25, 1856 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden."); May 29, 1855("Azalea nudiflora in garden”); May 17, 1854 ("Azalea nudiflora in woods begins to leaf now.");May 31, 1853 ("I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora.”) [Rhododendron periclymenoides , pinxterbloom azalea]

Wood pewee. See note to May 26, 1852 ("I hear the pea-wai, the tender note.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee

It is very hazy after a sultry morning, but the wind is getting east and cool. See May 26, 1855 (“Again a strong cold wind from the north by west, turning up the new and tender pads”); May 26, 1860 (“Overcast, rain-threatening; wind northeast and cool”)

At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air. See May 15, 1860 ("At this season there is thus a mist in the air and a mist on the earth.") May 15, 1854 ("The aspect of oak and other woods at a distance is somewhat like that of a very thick and reddish or yellowish mist about the evergreens."); May 27, 1855 ("How important the dark evergreens now seen through the haze in the distance and contrasting with the gauze-like, as yet thin-clad deciduous trees").

A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. See May 27, 1852 ("Ladies'-slippers out. They perfume the air.”); May 30, 1856 (“The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th”).

May 26. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 26

We are baptized into nature.

May 25.

P. M. — With Ricketson to my boat under Fair Haven Hill. 

In Hubbard's Grove, hear the shrill chattering of downy woodpeckers, very like the red squirrel's tche tche. 

Thermometer at 87° at 2.30 p. m. 

It is interesting to hear the bobolinks from the meadow sprinkle their lively strain along amid the tree-tops as they fly over the wood above our heads. It resounds in a novel manner through the aisles of the wood, and at the end that fine buzzing, wiry note. 

The black spruce of Holden's, apparently yesterday, but not the 23d. 

What a glorious crimson fire as you look up to the sunlight through the thin edges of the scales of its cones! So intensely glowing in their cool green beds! while their purplish sterile blossoms shed pollen on you. 

Took up four young spruce and brought them home in the boat. 

After all, I seem to have distinguished only one spruce, and that the black, judging by the cones, — perhaps the dark and light varieties of it, for the last is said to be very like the white spruce. The white spruce cones are cylindrical and have an entire firm edge to the scales, and the needles are longer. 

Though the river is thus high, we bathe at Cardinal Shore and find the water unexpectedly warm and the air also delicious. Thus we are baptized into nature.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 25, 1857

What a glorious crimson fire as you look up to the sunlight through the thin edges of the scales of its cones! . . . while their purplish sterile blossoms shed pollen on you. See May 21, 1857 ("The staminate buds of the black spruce are quite a bright red."); May 22, 1856 ("The red and cream-colored cone-shaped staminate buds of the black spruce will apparently shed pollen in one to three days?"); June 10, 1855 (" The white spruce cones are now a rich dark purple, more than a half inch long.")

Thus we are baptized into nature. See May 23, 1857 ("I wade in the swamp for the kalmia, amid the water andromeda and the sphagnum, scratching my legs with the first and sinking deep in the last. The water is now gratefully cool to my legs, so far from being poisoned in the strong water of the swamp. It is a sort of baptism for which I had waited. ")

We want no completeness but intensity of life.

May 24. 

A. M. — To Hill.

White ash, apparently yesterday, at Grape Shore but not at Conantum. What a singular appearance for some weeks its great masses of dark-purple anthers have made, fruit-like on the trees! 

A very warm morning. Now the birds sing more than ever, methinks, now, when the leaves are fairly expanding, the first really warm summer days. 

The water on the meadows is perfectly smooth nearly all the day. 

At 3 p. m. the thermometer is at 88°. 

It soon gets to be quite hazy. 

Apple out. 

Heard one speak to-day of his sense of awe at the thought of God, and suggested to him that awe was the cause of the potato-rot. 

The same speaker dwelt on the sufferings of life, but my advice was to go about one's business, suggesting that no ecstasy was ever interrupted, nor its fruit blasted. As for completeness and roundness, to be sure, we are each like one of the laciniae of a lichen, a torn fragment, but not the less cheerfully we expand in a moist day and assume unexpected colors. We want no completeness but intensity of life. 

Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer with his everlasting strain.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1857

At 3 p. m. the thermometer is at 88°. See May 24, 1856 ("To-day is suddenly overpowering warm. Thermometer at 1 P. M., 94° in the shade!")

It soon gets to be quite hazy. See May 24, 1860 ("Looking into the northwest horizon, I see that Wachusett is partially concealed by a haze.")

We each ... assume unexpected colors. We want no completeness but intensity of life. See October 18, 1856 ("[L]ife is everything. All that interests the reader is the depth and intensity of the life excited.")

Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer . . . . See May 22, 1854 ("Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets."); May 26, 1852 ("To-night I hear many crickets. They have commenced their song. They bring in the summer.")

May 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 24 

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 © 2009-2021

This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm.

May 23. 

May 23, 2017
(avesong)

P. M. — To Holden Swamp by boat. 

River still high generally over the meadows. Can sail across the Hubbard meadow. 

Off Staples wood-lot, hear the ah tche tche chit-i-vet of the redstart. 

Tortoises out again abundantly. Each particularly warm and sunny day brings them out on to every floating rail and stump. I count a dozen within three or four feet on a rail. It is a tortoise day. 

I hear one regular bullfrog trump, and as I approach the edge of the Holden Swamp, the tree-toads. 

Hear the pepe there, and the redstarts, and the chestnut-sided warbler. It appears striped slate and black above, white beneath, yellow-crowned with black side-head, two yellow bars on wing, white side-head below the black, black bill, and long chestnut streak on side. Its song lively and rather long, about as the summer yellowbird, but not in two bars; tse tse tse \ te tsah tsah tsah \ te sak yer se is the rhythm. 

Kalmia glauca yesterday. Rhodora, on shore there, a little before it. 

Nemopanthes, a day or two. 

This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm. When the leaves generally are just fairly expanding, and the deciduous trees are hoary with them, — a silvery hoari-ness, — then, about the edges of the swamps in the woods, these birds are flitting about in the tree-tops like gnats, catching the insects about the expanding leaf-buds. 

I wade in the swamp for the kalmia, amid the water andromeda and the sphagnum, scratching my legs with the first and sinking deep in the last. The water is now gratefully cool to my legs, so far from being poisoned in the strong water of the swamp. It is a sort of baptism for which I had waited. 

At Miles Swamp, the carpinus sterile catkins, apparently a day or two, but I see no fertile ones, unless that is one (pressed) at the southeast edge of swamp near grafted apple, and its catkins are effete! 

Hear the first veery strain. 

The small twigs of the carpinus are singularly tough, as I find when I try to break off the flowers. They bend without breaking. 

Sand cherry at Lupine Bank, possibly a day. Sassafras, a day or two. Fringed polygala, I hear of.

The first goldfinch twitters over, and at evening I hear the spark of a nighthawk.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 23, 1857

Off Staples wood-lot, hear the ah tche tche chit-i-vet of the redstart. See May 29, 1855 (“But what is that bird I hear much like the first part of the yellowbird’s strain, only two thirds as long and varied at end, and not so loud, — a-che che che, che-a, or tche tche tche, tche-a, or ah tche tche tche, chit-i-vet? ”); June 4, 1855 ("Redstarts still very common in the Trillium Woods (yesterday on Assabet also). Note tche, tche, tche vit, etc.”); June 6, 1855 ("On the Island I hear still the redstart—tsip tsip tsip tsip, tsit-i-yet, or sometimes tsip tsip tsip tsip, tse vet. A young male.”)  See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

The chestnut-sided warbler. See May 20, 1856 ("I now see distinctly the chestnut-sided warbler (of the 18th and 17th), by Beck Stow’s. It is very lively on the maples, birches, etc., over the edge of the swamp. Sings eech eech eech | wichy wichy | tchea or itch itch itch | witty witty | tchea  ");  May 24, 1854 ("In woods the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. It is exploring low trees and bushes, often along stems about young leaves, and frequently or after short pauses utters its somewhat summer-yellowbird like note, say, tchip tchip, chip chip (quick), tche tche ter tchéa, —— sprayey and rasping and faint.")

Kalmia glauca yesterday. Rhodora, on shore there, a little before it. See May 27, 1856 ("Kalmia in prime, and rhodora. . . ."); May 26, 1855 ("To my surprise the Kalmia glauca almost all out; perhaps began with rhodora. A very fine flower, the more interesting for being early."); January 9, 1855 ("Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots . . . the Kalmia glauca var.rosmarinifolia.") Note: the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia is known as rosemary-leaf laurel or alpine bog laurel (Andromeda Polifolia) H. Peter Loewer, Thoreau's Garden: Native Plants for the American Landscape 32-33

This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers. See note to May 18, 1856  ("The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce. They swarm like gnats now. They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes.")

I wade in the swamp for the kalmia, . . . a sort of baptism for which I had waited. Compare May 13, 1860 ("The swamp is so dry that I walk about it in my shoes").

The first goldfinch twitters over. See May 4, 1856 ("Hear and see a goldfinch, on the ground."); May 5, 1854 ("Hear what I should call the twitter and mew of a goldfinch and see the bird go over with ricochet flight"); May 13, 1854 ("Goldfinch heard pretty often."); May 17, 1856 ("A goldfinch twitters over. ")

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau May 23

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 © 2009-2021