A cold afternoon
windy with some snow not yet
melted on the ground.
My eye wanders as
I sit on an oak stump by
an old cellar-hole.
Methinks that in my
mood I am asking Nature
to give me a sign.
Transient gladness.
I do not know what it is –
something that I see.
This recognition
from white pines now reflecting
a silvery light.
Where is my home?
It is as indistinct as
an old cellar-hole.
And by the old site
I sit on the stump of an
oak which once grew here.
November 30, 2016
Sunday.
A rather cold and windy afternoon, with some snow not yet melted on the ground.
Under the south side of the hill between Brown's and Tarbell's, in a warm nook, disturbed three large gray squirrels and some partridges, who had all sought out this bare and warm place. While the squirrels hid themselves in the tree-tops, I sat on an oak stump by an old cellar-hole and mused.
This squirrel is always an unexpectedly large animal to see frisking about.
My eye wanders across the valley to the pine woods which fringe the opposite side, and in their aspect my eye finds something which addresses itself to my nature.
Methinks that in my mood I was asking Nature to give me a sign.
I do not know exactly what it was that attracted my eye. I experienced a transient gladness, at any rate, at something which I saw.
I am sure that my eye rested with pleasure on the white pines, now reflecting a silvery light, the infinite stories of their boughs, tier above tier, a sort of basaltic structure, a crumbling precipice of pine horizontally stratified. Each pine is like a great green feather stuck in the ground. A myriad white pine boughs extend themselves horizontally, one above and behind another, each bearing its burden of silvery sunlight, with darker seams between them, as if it were a great crumbling piny precipice thus stratified.
On this my eyes pastured, while the squirrels were up the trees behind me. That, at any rate, it was that I got by my afternoon walk, a certain recognition from the pine, some congratulation.
Where is my home? It is indistinct as an old cellar-hole, now a faint indentation merely in a farmer's field, which he has plowed into and rounded off its edges years ago, and I sit by the old site on the stump of an oak which once grew there.
Such is the nature where we have lived.
Thick birch groves stand here and there, dark brown (?) now with white lines more or less distinct.
The Lygodium palmatum is quite abundant on that side of the swamp, twining round the goldenrods, etc., etc.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 30, 1851
My eye rested with pleasure on the white pines, now reflecting a silvery light. See November 11, 1851 ("There is a cold, silvery light on the white pines as I go through J.P. Brown's field near Jenny Dugan’s.”); December 21. 1851(“Sunlight on pine-needles is the phenomenon of a winter day.”); February 4, 1852 ("Now the white pine are a misty blue; anon a lively, silvery light plays on them, and they seem to erect themselves unusually. . . The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them."); February 5, 1852 ("The boughs, feathery boughs, of the white pines, tier above tier, reflect a silvery light against the darkness of the grove, as if both the silvery-lighted and greenish bough and the shadowy intervals of the shade behind belong to one tree.”); December 8, 1855 ("Yet it is cheering to walk there while the sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine.”); December 3, 1856 (“Tthe pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon. . . .The silvery needles of the pine straining the light.”).
The Lygodium palmatum twining round the goldenrods. CLIMBING FERN, or Hartford Fern (Lygodium palmatum) . A species of fern found, rarely, from Massachusetts to Kentucky and southward, remarkable for climbing or twining around weeds and shrubs ~ Wikisource. See October 2, 1859 (“The climbing fern is perfectly fresh, — and apparently therefore an evergreen, — the more easily found amid the withered cinnamon and flowering ferns.”); May 1, 1859 ("The climbing fern is persistent, i. e. retains its greenness still, though now partly brown and withered.")
I do not know exactly what it was that attracted my eye. I experienced a transient gladness, at any rate, at something which I saw.
I am sure that my eye rested with pleasure on the white pines, now reflecting a silvery light, the infinite stories of their boughs, tier above tier, a sort of basaltic structure, a crumbling precipice of pine horizontally stratified. Each pine is like a great green feather stuck in the ground. A myriad white pine boughs extend themselves horizontally, one above and behind another, each bearing its burden of silvery sunlight, with darker seams between them, as if it were a great crumbling piny precipice thus stratified.
On this my eyes pastured, while the squirrels were up the trees behind me. That, at any rate, it was that I got by my afternoon walk, a certain recognition from the pine, some congratulation.
Where is my home? It is indistinct as an old cellar-hole, now a faint indentation merely in a farmer's field, which he has plowed into and rounded off its edges years ago, and I sit by the old site on the stump of an oak which once grew there.
Such is the nature where we have lived.
Thick birch groves stand here and there, dark brown (?) now with white lines more or less distinct.
The Lygodium palmatum is quite abundant on that side of the swamp, twining round the goldenrods, etc., etc.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 30, 1851
My eye rested with pleasure on the white pines, now reflecting a silvery light. See November 11, 1851 ("There is a cold, silvery light on the white pines as I go through J.P. Brown's field near Jenny Dugan’s.”); December 21. 1851(“Sunlight on pine-needles is the phenomenon of a winter day.”); February 4, 1852 ("Now the white pine are a misty blue; anon a lively, silvery light plays on them, and they seem to erect themselves unusually. . . The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them."); February 5, 1852 ("The boughs, feathery boughs, of the white pines, tier above tier, reflect a silvery light against the darkness of the grove, as if both the silvery-lighted and greenish bough and the shadowy intervals of the shade behind belong to one tree.”); December 8, 1855 ("Yet it is cheering to walk there while the sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine.”); December 3, 1856 (“Tthe pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon. . . .The silvery needles of the pine straining the light.”).
The Lygodium palmatum twining round the goldenrods. CLIMBING FERN, or Hartford Fern (Lygodium palmatum) . A species of fern found, rarely, from Massachusetts to Kentucky and southward, remarkable for climbing or twining around weeds and shrubs ~ Wikisource. See October 2, 1859 (“The climbing fern is perfectly fresh, — and apparently therefore an evergreen, — the more easily found amid the withered cinnamon and flowering ferns.”); May 1, 1859 ("The climbing fern is persistent, i. e. retains its greenness still, though now partly brown and withered.")
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