December 23, 2016
This morning, when I woke, I found it snowing, the snow fine and driving almost horizontally, as if it had set in for a long storm, but a little after noon it ceased snowing and began to clear up, and I set forth for a walk.
The snow which we have had for the last week or ten days has been remarkably light and dry. It is pleasant walking in the woods now, when the sun is just coming out and shining on the woods freshly covered with snow.
At a distance the oak woods look very venerable. A fine, hale, wintry aspect things wear, and the pines, all snowed up, even suggest comfort. Where boughs cross each other much snow is caught, which now in all woods is gradually tumbling down.
By half past three the sun is fairly out. I go to the Cliffs. There is a narrow ridge of snow, a white line, on the storm side of the stem of every exposed tree.
I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it.
Already a few clouds are glowing like a golden sierra just above the horizon. From a low arch the clear sky has rapidly spread eastward over the whole heavens, and the sun shines serenely, and the air is still, and the spotless snow covers the fields. The snow-storm is over, the clouds have departed, the sun shines serenely, the air is still, a pure and trackless white napkin covers the ground, and a fair evening is coming to conclude all.
Gradually the sun sinks, the air grows more dusky, and I perceive that if it were not for the light reflected from the snow it would be quite dark. The woodchopper has started for home. I can no longer distinguish the color of the red oak leaves against the snow, but they appear black. The partridges have come forth to bud on the apple trees.
Now the sun has quite disappeared, but the afterglow, as I may call it, apparently the reflection from the cloud beyond which the sun went down on the thick atmosphere of the horizon, is unusually bright and lasting. Long, broken clouds in the horizon, in the dun atmosphere, — as if the fires of day were still smoking there, — hang with red and golden edging like the saddle cloths of the steeds of the sun.
Now all the clouds grow black, and I give up to-night; but unexpectedly, half an hour later when I look out, having got home, I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red, — that dun atmosphere instead of clouds reflecting the sun, — and I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 23, 1851
This morning, when I woke, I found it snowing, the snow fine and driving almost horizontally, as if it had set in for a long storm. See December 23, 1850 ("Here is an old-fashioned snow-storm.") See also December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face . . .”)
By half past three the sun is fairly out. I go to the Cliffs. There is a narrow ridge of snow, a white line, on the storm side of the stem of every exposed tree.
I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it.
Already a few clouds are glowing like a golden sierra just above the horizon. From a low arch the clear sky has rapidly spread eastward over the whole heavens, and the sun shines serenely, and the air is still, and the spotless snow covers the fields. The snow-storm is over, the clouds have departed, the sun shines serenely, the air is still, a pure and trackless white napkin covers the ground, and a fair evening is coming to conclude all.
Gradually the sun sinks, the air grows more dusky, and I perceive that if it were not for the light reflected from the snow it would be quite dark. The woodchopper has started for home. I can no longer distinguish the color of the red oak leaves against the snow, but they appear black. The partridges have come forth to bud on the apple trees.
Now the sun has quite disappeared, but the afterglow, as I may call it, apparently the reflection from the cloud beyond which the sun went down on the thick atmosphere of the horizon, is unusually bright and lasting. Long, broken clouds in the horizon, in the dun atmosphere, — as if the fires of day were still smoking there, — hang with red and golden edging like the saddle cloths of the steeds of the sun.
Now all the clouds grow black, and I give up to-night; but unexpectedly, half an hour later when I look out, having got home, I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red, — that dun atmosphere instead of clouds reflecting the sun, — and I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 23, 1851
This morning, when I woke, I found it snowing, the snow fine and driving almost horizontally, as if it had set in for a long storm. See December 23, 1850 ("Here is an old-fashioned snow-storm.") See also December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face . . .”)
There is a narrow ridge of snow, a white line, on the storm side of the stem of every exposed tree. See January 5, 1852 ("To-day the trees are white with snow . . . and have the true wintry look, on the storm side. Not till this has the winter come to the forest.”); December 27, 1853 (“there is a white ridge up and down their trunks on the northwest side, showing which side the storm came from, which, better than the moss, would enable one to find his way in the night.”); February 21, 1854 (“The snow has lodged more or less in perpendicular lines on the northerly sides of trees”); December 26, 1855 (“The ice is chiefly on the upper and on the storm side of twigs”); January 14, 1856 ("I think that you can best tell from what side the storm came by observing on which side of the trees the snow is plastered.“)
I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it. See December 23, 1859 ("I ascended Ball's Hill to see the sun set. How red its light at this hour!")
The woodchopper has started for home. See· December 15, 1856 (“the last strokes of the woodchopper, who presently bends his steps homeward; ”)
The evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red and just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon. See January 23, 1852 ("And the new moon and the evening star, close together, preside over the twilight scene”); January 24, 1852 (“And now the crescent of the moon is seen, and her attendant star is farther off than last night.”); February 3, 1852 ("The moon is nearly full tonight, and the moment is passed when the light in the east (i. e. of the moon) balances the light in the west. Venus is now like a little moon in the west,"); June 15, 1852 ("The evening star, multiplied by undulating water, is like bright sparks of fire continually ascending. "); July 27, 1852 ("All glow on the clouds is gone, except from one higher, small, rosy pink isle. The solemnity of the evening sky! Just before the earliest star I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds which have gathered.”)
No comments:
Post a Comment