I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world

 May 17. 

May 17, 2019

5 a. m. — To Island by boat.

 Everything has sensibly advanced during the warm and moist night. Some trees, as the small maples in the street, already look verdurous. The air has not sensibly cooled much. The chimney swallows are busily skimming low over the river and just touching the water without regard to me, as a week ago they did, and as they circle back overhead to repeat the experiment, I hear a sharp snap or short rustling of their wings. 

The button-bush now shows the first signs of life, on a close inspection, in its small round, smooth, greenish buds. 

The polygonums and pontederias are getting above water, the latter like spoons on long handles. 

The Cornus florida is blossoming; will be fairly out to-day.1 

The Polygonatum pubescens; one on the Island has just opened. This is the smaller Solomon's-seal.

 A thorn there will blossom to-day. 

The Viola palmata is out there, in the meadow. 

Everywhere the huckleberry's sticky leaves are seen expanding, and the high blueberry is in blossom. Now is the time to ad mire the very young and tender leaves. The blossoms of the red oak hang down under its young leaves as under a canopy. 

The petals have already fallen from the Amelanchier Botryapium, and young berries are plainly forming. 

I hear the wood pewee, — pe-a-wai. The heat of yesterday has brought him on. 

P. M. — To Corner Spring and Fair Haven Cliffs. 

Myosotis laxa is out a day or two. At first does not run; is short and upright like M. stricta.

 Golden senecio will be out by to-morrow at least.

 The early cinquefoil is now in its prime and spots the banks and hillsides and dry meadows with its dazzling yellow. How lively! It is one of the most interesting yellow flowers. 

The fields are also now whitened, perhaps as much as ever, with the houstonia. 

The buck- bean is out, apparently to-day, the singularly fuzzy- looking blossom. How inconspicuous its leaves now!

 The rhodora is peculiar for being, like the peach, a profusion of pink blossoms on a leafless stem. This shrub is, then, a late one to leaf out. 

The bobolink skims by before the wind how far without motion of his wings! sometimes borne sidewise as he turns his head — for thus he can fly — and tinkling, linking, incessantly all the way. 

How very beautiful, like the fairest flowers, the young black oak shoots with leaves an inch long now! like red velvet on one side and downy white on the other, with only a red edge. Compare this with the pinker white oak. 

The Salix nigra just in bloom.

May 19, 2023

 The trientalis, properly called star-flower, is a white star, single, double, or treble. 

The fringed polygala surprises us in meadows or in low woods as a rarer, richer, and more delicate color, with a singularly tender or delicate-looking leaf. 

As you approach midsummer, the color of flowers is more intense and fiery. The reddest flower is the flower especially. Our blood is not white, nor is it yellow, nor even blue. 

The nodding trillium has apparently been out a day or two. Methinks it smells like the lady's-slipper.

Also the Ranunculus recurvatus for a day or two. The small two or three leaved Solomon's- seal is just out.

 The Viola cucullata is sometimes eight inches high, and leaves in proportion. It must be the largest of the violets except perhaps the yellow. 

The V. blanda is almost entirely out of bloom at the spring. 

Returning toward Fair Haven, I perceive at Potter's fence the first whiff of that ineffable fragrance from the Wheeler meadow, — as it were the promise of strawberries, pineapples, etc., in the aroma of their flowers, so blandly sweet, — aroma that fitly fore runs the summer and the autumn's most delicious fruits. It would certainly restore all such sick as could be conscious of it. The odors of no garden are to be named with it. It is wafted from the garden of gardens. It appears to blow from the river meadow from the west or southwest, here about forty rods wide or more. If the air here always possessed this bland sweetness, this spot would become famous and be visited by sick and well from all parts of the earth. It would be carried off in bottles and become an article of traffic which kings would strive to monopolize. The air of Elysium cannot be more sweet. 

Cardamine hirsuta out some time by the ivy tree.

The Viola lanceolata seems to pass into the cucullata insensibly, but can that small round-leaved white violet now so abundantly in blossom in open low ground be the same with that large round-leaved one now about out of blossom in shady low ground ? *

Arabis rhomboidea just out by the willow on the Corner causeway. 

The Ranunculus repens perhaps yesterday, with its spotted leaves and its not recurved calyx though furrowed stem. Was that a very large Veronica serpyllifolia by the Corner Spring? Who shall keep with the lupines? They will apparently blossom within a week under Fair Haven. 

The Viola sagittata, of which Viola ovata is made a variety, is now very marked there. 

The V. pedata there presents the greatest array of blue of any flower as yet. The flowers are so raised above their leaves, and so close together, that they make a more indelible impression of blue on the eye; it is almost dazzling. I blink as I look at them, they seem to reflect the blue rays so forcibly, with a slight tinge of lilac. To be sure, there is no telling what the redder ovata might not do if they grew as densely, so many eyes or scales of blue side by side, forming small shields of that color four or five inches in diameter. The effect and intensity is very much increased by the numbers. 

I hear the first unquestionable nighthawk squeak and see him circling far off high above the earth. It is now about 5 o'clock p. m. 

The tree-toads are heard in the rather moist atmosphere, as if presaging rain. 

I hear the dumping sound of bull(?)frogs, telling the weather is warm. The paddocks, as if too lazy to be disturbed, say now to the intruder, " don't, don't, don't, don't ; " also in the morning after the first sultry night. 

The chinquapin oak may be said to flower and leave out at the same time with the ilicifolia. It is distinguished as well by its yellow catkins as by its leaves. 

Pyrus arbutifolia is out, to-day or yesterday. 

A Crataegus just out.

I sit now on a rock on the west slope of Fair Haven orchard, an hour before sunset, this warm, almost sultry evening, the air filled with the sweetness of apple blossoms (this is blossom week) , — or I think it is mainly that meadow fragrance still, — the sun partly concealed behind a low cloud in the west, the air cleared by last evening's thunder-shower, the river now beautifully smooth (though a warm, bland breeze blows up here), full of light and reflecting the placid western sky and the dark woods which overhang it. 

I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world, it was so soothing. I saw that I could not go home to supper and lose it. It was so much fairer, serener, more beautiful, than my mood had been. 

The fields beyond the river have unexpectedly a smooth, lawn-like beauty, and in beautiful curves sweep round the edge of the woods. The rapidly expanding foliage of the deciduous (last evening's rain or moisture has started them) lights up with a lively yellow green the dark pines which we have so long been used to. Some patches (I speak of woods half a mile or more off) are a lively green, some gray or reddish-gray still, where white oaks stand. 

With the stillness of the air comes the stillness of the water. 

The sweetest singers among the birds are heard more distinctly now, as the reflections are seen more distinctly in the water, — the veery constantly now. 

Methinks this serene, ambrosial beauty could hardly have been but for last evening's thunder-shower, which, to be sure, barely touched us, but cleared the air and gave a start to vegetation. 

The elm on the opposite side of the river has now a thin but dark verdure, almost as dark as the pines, while, as I have said, the prevailing color of the deciduous woods is a light yellowish and sunny green. 

The woods rarely if ever present a more beautiful aspect from afar than now. 

Methinks the black oak at early leafing is more red than the red oak. 

Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds — that partakes of the light of the day and the stillness of the night ! 

Sit on Cliffs. 

The Shrub Oak Plain, where are so many young white oaks, is now a faint rose-color, almost like a distant peach orchard in bloom and seen against sere red ground. What might at first be taken for the color of some sere leaves and bare twigs still left, its tender red expanding leaves. 

You might say of the white oaks and of many black oaks at least, "When the oaks are in the red." 

The perfect smoothness of Fair Haven Pond, full of light and reflecting the wood so distinctly, while still occasionally the sun shines warm and brightly from behind a cloud, giving the completest contrast of sunshine and shade, is enough to make this hour memorable. 

The red pin cushion gall is already formed on the new black oak leaves, with little grubs in them, and the leaves, scarcely more than two inches long, are already attacked by other foes. 

Looking down from these rocks, the black oak has a very light hoary or faint silvery color; the white oak, though much less advanced, has a yet more hoary color; but the red oaks (as well as the hickories) have a lively, glossy aspen green, a shade lighter than the birch now, and their long yellowish catkins appear further advanced than the black. 

Some black as well as white oaks are reddish still. 

The new shoots now color the whole of the juniper (creeping) with a light yellow tinge. It appears to be just in blossom,1 and those little green berries must be already a year old; and, as it is called dioecious, these must be the fertile blossoms. 

This must be Krigia Virginica now budded, close by the juniper,  and will blossom in a day or two.

The low black berry, apparently, on Cliffs is out, earlier than else where, and Veronica arvensis (?), very small, obscure pale-blue flower, and, to my surprise, Linaria Canadensis. 

Returning slowly, I sit on the wall of the orchard by the white pine. 

Now the cows begin to low, and the river reflects the golden light of the sun just before his setting. The sough of the wind in the pines is more noticeable, as if the air were otherwise more still and hollow. 

The wood thrush has sung for some time. He touches a depth in me which no other bird's song does. He has learned to sing, and no thrumming of the strings or tuning disturbs you. Other birds may whistle pretty well, but he is the master of a finer-toned instrument. His song is musical, not from association merely, not from variety, but the character of its tone. It is all divine, — a Shakespeare among birds, and a Homer too. 

This sweetness of the air, does it not always first succeed a thunder-storm? Is it not a general sweetness, and not to be referred to a particular plant? 

He who cuts down woods beyond a certain limit exterminates birds. 

How red are the scales of some hickory buds, now turned back! 

The fragrance of the apple blossom reminds me of a pure and innocent and unsophisticated country girl bedecked for church.

The purple sunset is reflected from the surface of the river, as if its surface were tinged with lake. 

Here is a field sparrow that varies his strain very sweetly.

Coming home from Spring by Potter's Path to the Corner road in the dusk, saw a dead-leaf-colored hylodes; detected it by its expanding and relapsing bubble, nearly twice as big as its head, as it sat on an alder twig six inches from ground and one rod from a pool. 

The beach plum is out to-day.

The whip-poor- will sings. Large insects now fly at night. This is a somewhat sultry night. We must begin now to look out for insects about the candles.

The lilac out. 

Genius rises above nature; in spite of heat, in spite of cold, works and lives.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal , May 17, 1853

That ineffable fragrance from the Wheeler meadow, — as it were the promise of strawberries, pineapples, etc., in the aroma of their flowers. See May 16, 1852 (“The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose. A fine, delicious fragrance, which will come to the senses only when it will.”); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower. . . .. Nature now is perfectly genial to man.”); May 6, 1855 ("that unaccountable fugacious fragrance, as of all flowers”)

The air filled with the sweetness of apple blossoms (this is blossom week). Compare 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.”).

I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world. See May 1850 ("I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with the same delight as ever. It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever, what this world is. . . ."); May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today.."). May 16, 1854 (" It is a splendid day, so clear and bright and fresh; the warmth of the air and the bright tender verdure putting forth on all sides make an impression of luxuriance and genialness, so perfectly fresh");  May 17, 1852 ("Now the sun has come out after the May storm, how bright, how full of freshness and tender promise and fragrance is the new world!"): May 18, 1852 ("The world can never be more beautiful than now.”); May 22, 1854("How many times I have been surprised  thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”) ; October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape.”); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.") See also August 6, 1852 ("All men beholding a rainbow begin to understand the significance of the Greek name for the world,- Kosmos, or beauty. We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower.");  December 11, 1855 ("We get only transient and partial glimpses of the beauty of the world."); October 4, 1859 ("In what book is this world and its beauty described?”)

I hear the first unquestionable nighthawk squeak and see him circling far off high above the earth.. See May 17, 1860 (" A nighthawk with its distinct white spots ") See also   April 1, 1853 ("Hear what I should not hesitate to call the squeak of the nighthawk , - only Wilson makes them arrive early in May"); April 19, 1853 ("Hear again that same nighthawk-like sound over a meadow at evening. "); May 5, 1852 ("No nighthawks heard yet.");  May 9, 1853 ("Now at starlight that same nighthawk or snipe squeak is heard but no hovering.");   May 16, 1859 ("At eve the first spark of a nighthawk. ");. May 25, 1852 (" First nighthawks squeak and boom") and also see  A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk

This sweetness of the air, does it not always first succeed a thunder-storm? See May 17, 1852 (" After a storm at this season, the sun comes out and lights up the tender expanding leaves, and all nature is full of light and fragrance, and the birds sing without ceasing, and the earth is a fairyland . . . how bright, how full of freshness and tender promise and fragrance is the new world! ") ; May 11, 1854 (" I suspect that summer weather may be always ushered in in a similar manner, — thunder-shower, rainbow, smooth water, and warm night.")