Beck Stow's Swamp!

July 17. 

Saturday. 

Cooler weather; a gentle steady rain, not shower; such coolness as rain makes; not sharp and invigorating, exhilarating, as in the spring, but thoughtful, reminding of the fall; still, moist, unoppressive weather, in which corn and potatoes grow; not a vein of the northwest wind or the northeast. The coolness of the west tempered with rain and mist. 

As I walked by the river last evening, I heard no toads. 

A coolness as from an earth covered with vegetation, such as the toad finds in the high grass. A verdurous coolness, not a snowy or icy one, in the shadow of the vapors which the heat makes rise from the earth. Can this be dog-dayish? 

P. M. — A summer rain. 

A gentle steady rain, long a-gathering, without thunder or lightning, — such as we have not, and, methinks, could not have had, earlier than this. 

To Beck Stow's. 

I pick raspberries dripping with rain beyond Sleepy Hollow. This weather is rather favorable to thought. On all sides is heard a gentle dripping of the rain on the leaves, yet it is perfectly warm. 

It is a day of comparative leisure to many farmers. Some go to the mill-dam and the shops; some go a-fishing. 

The Antennaria margaritacea, pearly everlasting, is out; and the thoroughworts, red and white, begin (?) to show their colors. 

Notwithstanding the rain, some children still pursue their blackberrying on the Great Fields.

Swamp-pink lingers still. 

Roses are not so numerous as they were. Some which I examine now have short, stout hooked thorns and narrow bracts. Is it the Rosa Carolina?

I love to see a clear crystalline water flowing out of a swamp over white sand and decayed wood, spring-like. The year begins to have a husky look or scent in some quarters. I remark the green coats of the hazelnuts, and hear the permanent jay. Some fields are covered now with tufts or clumps of indigo- weed, yellow with blossoms, with a few dead leaves turned black here and there.

Beck Stow's Swamp! What an incredible spot to think of in town or city! When life looks sandy and barren, is reduced to its lowest terms, we have no appetite, and it has no flavor, then let me visit such a swamp as this, deep and impenetrable, where the earth quakes for a rod around you at every step, with its open water where the swallows skim and twitter, its meadow and cotton-grass, its dense patches of dwarf andromeda, now brownish-green, with clumps of blue berry bushes, its spruces and its verdurous border of woods imbowering it on every side. 

The trees now in the rain look heavy and rich all day, as commonly at twilight, drooping with the weight of wet leaves. 

That Sericocarjrus conyzoides prevails now, and the entire-leaved erigeron still abounds everywhere. 

The meadows on the Turnpike are white with the meadow-rue now more than ever. They are filled with it many feet high. 

The Lysimachia lanceolata is very common too. All flowers are handsomer in rain. 

Methinks the sweet-briar is done. The hardhack, whose spires are not yet abundant, stands to me for agreeable coarseness. 

Swallows are active throughout this rain. 

Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco. Lappa major, burdock. Amaranthus hybridus, though not yet red. Verbena hastata, blue vervain. Gnaphalium uliginosum by the roadside, cudweed. 

Again methinks I hear the goldfinch, but not for a day or two the bobolink. 

At evening the prunellas in the grass like the sky glow purple, which were blue all day. 

The vetch I looked for is mown, but I find it fresh elsewhere. 

The caducous polygala has the odor of checkerberry at its root, and hence I thought the flower had a fugacious, spicy fragrance. Hypericum Canadense. 

The slender bell-flower, galium-like, with a triangular stem in low grounds now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 17, 1852

Beck Stow's Swamp! What an incredible spot to think of. See July 14, 1853  (“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. "); May 24, 1854 ("Wade into Beck Stow's. . . . Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime at least a week or more.") August 30, 1856 ("I get my new experiences still, not at the opera listening to the Swedish Nightingale, but at Beck Stow's Swamp listening to the native wood thrush.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  at Beck Stow's Swamp

 I pick raspberries dripping with rain.  See July 15, 1859 ("Raspberries, in one swamp, are quite abundant and apparently at their height. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

Notwithstanding the rain, some children still pursue their blackberrying on the Great Fields. See July 16, 1851 ("Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them."); July 24, 1853 ("This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

Swallows are active throughout this rain. See A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, Birds in the Rain

Again methinks I hear the goldfinch, but not for a day or two the bobolink See July 7, 1859 ("The note of the bobolink has begun to sound rare?"); July 10, 1854 (" The singing birds at present are: . . .Rural: Song sparrow, seringos, flicker, kingbird, goldfinch, link of bobolink, cherry-bird. "); July 15, 1854 ("The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall."); July 15, 1856 ("Bobolinks are heard — their link, link — above and amid the tall rue which now whitens the meadows”);August 6, 1852 (“With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc., cease?”); August 10, 1853 ("the goldfinch sings. . . . . Of late, and for long time, only the link, link of bobolink."); August 10, 1854 ("The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season. They are nuts of sound, --ripened seeds of sound. . . like the sparkle on water.”)

At evening the prunellas in the grass like the sky glow purple, which were blue all day. See July 16, 1851  ("The prunella sends back a blue ray from under my feet as I walk.")