A year is made up of
a certain series and number
of sensations and thoughts
which have their language in nature.
Henry Thoreau, June 6, 1857
I do not remember when
I have taken a sail or
a row on the river
in December.
December 2, 1852
December 1, 2022
I love the shrub oak –
its scanty garment of leaves
whispering to me.
December 1, 1856
The chickadee hops
nearer and nearer as the
winter advances.
The little chickadees
love to skulk and peep out
from behind the trees and shrubs
that retain their withered leaves
through the winter. I hear their faint
silvery lisping notes
like tinkling glass
and occasionally
a sprightly day-day-day
as they inquisitively hop
nearer and nearer to me.
They are our most honest
and innocent little bird
drawing yet nearer to us
as the winter advances
and deserve best of
any of the walker.
December 1, 1853
Anticipation,
looking through winter to spring,
this melodious air.
Distant sounds
remind me of spring --
a certain resonance
and elasticity in the air
makes the least sound
melodious
as in spring.
It is an anticipation,
looking through winter to spring.
When I first saw that snow-cloud
When I first saw that snow-cloud
it stretched low along the northwest horizon
perhaps one quarter round
and half a dozen times as
high as the mountains
and remarkably horizontal
on its upper edge, but that edge
for a part of the way very thin
composed of a dusky mist
which first suggested snow.
Soon after it rose and advanced
and was plainly snowing
as if some great dark machine
sifted the snow upon the mountains.
At the same time the most brilliant of sunsets,
the clearest and crispiest of winter skies.
December 2, 1858
December 2, 1858
At the forest’s edge
silvery needles of the pine
straining the light.
Colors at this season
I love the few homely colors
of Nature at this season —
her strong wholesome browns
her sober and primeval grays
her celestial blue
her vivacious green
her pure cold snowy white.
Now for the short days –
sun behind a low cloud and
the world is darkened.
Now for the short days
and early twilight
sound of woodchopping.
The sun goes down
behind a low cloud and
the world is darkened.
The partridge budding
the apple tree bursts away
from the path-side and
the whole atmosphere
suddenly fills with a
mellow yellowish light.
I see boys skating
but know not when the ice froze.
So busy writing.
Here or there one or
another rainbow color
Out to see the glaze
now half fallen melting off –
the dripping trees and
falling ice wets you
like rain in the woods. It is
a lively sound busy
tinkling incessant
brattling and from time to time
rushing crashing sound
falling ice of trees
suddenly erecting when
relieved of their loads.
Look at this dripping
tree between you and the sun
you may see here there
one or another
rainbow color – a small
brilliant point of light.
That grand old poem
called Winter is round again
It was summer and
now again it is Winter –
Nature loves this rhyme.
.A perfect poem –
epic in blank verse with a
million tinkling rhymes.
Nature loves this rhyme
so well that she never tires
of repeating it
as fast as snowflakes.
Summer was, now winter is.
Nature loves this rhyme.
That grand old poem
called Winter is round again –
Nature loves this rhyme
December 7, 1856
Sun is reflected
from the needles of the pine
with a silvery light.
Dec. 8, 1855
A universal present
We believe in beauty
but not now and here.
Let it be past or to come
and a thing is idealized.
It becomes a deed ripe
with the bloom on it.
But what is actually
present and transpiring
is not perceived with a halo
or blue enamel of intervening air.
Only the poet has the faculty
Only the poet has the faculty
so to see present things as
past and future --as
universally significant.
December 8, 1859
It often happens
as the weather is harder
the sky seems softer.
Such is a winter eve.
The sun is near setting.
Looking over the pond westward
a bewitching stillness reigns
over the snow-clad landscape.
Indeed, all the winter day
has the stillness of twilight.
I hear only the strokes
of a lingering woodchopper
and the melodious
hooting of an owl.
The pond is perfectly smooth
and full of light.
The picture of the day
set in a gilded frame.
December 9, 1856
The morning and the evening
now make the whole day
A fine, clear, cold winter morning --
The sun is rising
and the smokes from the chimneys
blush like sunset clouds
. . .
I hardly get out
a couple of miles before
the sun is setting
. . .
I see the sun set
and make haste with the red sky
over my shoulder.
It has been a warm, clear, glorious winter day.
Great winter itself
reflecting rainbow colors
like a precious gem.
December 11, 1855
The Season of two Twilights
The day is short and
we now have these early still
clear winter sunsets.
By mid-afternoon
I will see the sun setting
far through the woods.
That peculiar
clear greenish sky in the west
like a molten gem.
Two twilights merely –
the morning and the evening
now make the whole day.
The snow having come
we see the paths of partridge
coming and going
countless deer mice
and first fox, as it were, for
our nightly neighbors,
yet by their tracks we
are reminded more of men
than in the summer.
Night comes on early –
pine tree tops outlined against
the cold western sky–
now snowy mountains
have a slight tinge of purple
resembling the clouds.
December 12, 1859
And now first I take
that peculiar winter walk –
sky under my feet.
My first true winter walk
I take on the river where
I cannot go in the summer –
It is the walk peculiar to winter.
Now first I take it.
and I see that the fox too
has already taken the same walk
where not even he can go in the summer.
We both turn our steps hither
over black ice three or four inches thick
reassured only by seeing
the thickness at the cracks
richly marked internally
with large whitish figures.
The work of crystallization.
Now that the river is frozen
we have a sky under our feet also.
Smooth mirror in icy frame
full of reflections.
The river is open almost its whole length
a smooth mirror within an icy frame.
It is well to improve such a time to walk by it.
This strip of water over the channel
between broad fields of ice
looks like a polished silver mirror
or like another surface of polished ice
distinguished from the surrounding ice
only by its reflections.
Reflections – of weeds, willows, and elms,
and the houses of the village – so distinct,
the stems so black and distinct
for they contrast with clear white ice
and the silvery surface of the water.
Your eye slides over a plane surface
of smooth ice of one color to a water
surface of silvery smoothness –
a gem set in ice reflecting the weeds and trees
and houses and clouds – reflections simple and distinct
agianst the abrupt white field of ice.
We see so little open and smooth water at this season
I improve the opportunity to walk along the river.
The low grass and weeds
bent down with crystalline drops
now ready to freeze.
A winter eve in memory
The hushed stillness of
the wood at sundown, aye
all the winter day.
Smooth serenity
and reflections of the pond,
alone free from ice.
Hooting of the owl
with the distant whistle of
a locomotive.
The last strokes of the
woodchopper who presently
bends his steps homeward.
Gilded bar of cloud
conducting my thoughts into
the eternal west.
The horizon glow
and the hasty walk homeward –
long winter evening.
Mist reveals the trees one at a time.
Mist and mizzling
in the afternoon
when I go round and
back by the railroad.
The mist makes the near trees
dark and noticeable,
like pictures,
revealing but one at a time.
The dim outline of the woods
through the mist
is but the merest film
and suspicion of a wood.
As we go over the bridge
the reflection of the trees
in the smooth open water
December 16, 1855
A dozen or more
tree sparrows flitting though the
edge of the birches.
December 17, 1856
The hard distinct edge
of the western hills now seen
through the clear, cold air.
December 18, 1853
This the first skating.
Loring's Pond frozen.
So polished a surface
I mistake it for water.
Cracked into large squares
like the faces of a reflector
so exquisitely polished that
the sky and scudding dun-colored
clouds, with mother-o'-pearl tints,
reflect as in the calmest water.
I slide over it with misgiving
mistaking the ice before me for water.
This the first skating.
December 18, 1852
The encircled pond,
chilled by winter's icy grasp
froze over last night.
The icy water
reflecting the warm colors
of the sunset sky.
December 20, 1855
Sunset in winter from a clearing in the woods
the pines impress me as human.
A clump of white pines
seen far westward
over the shrub oak plain
now lit up by the setting sun,
a soft feathery grove,
their gray stems indistinctly seen
like human beings
come to their cabin door
standing expectant
on the edge of the plain
with a mild humanity.
The trees indeed have hearts.
With affection the sun sends
its farewell ray far and level
over the copses to them
and they silently receive it
with gratitude like a group of settlers
with their children.
A vaporous cloud
floats high over them,
while in the west the sun goes down
behind glowing pines
and golden clouds like mountains
skirt the horizon.
Here I stand in a clearing in the woods
and look a mile or more over the shrub oaks
to the distant pine copses and horizon.
These finest days of the year
so pure and still.
We are tempted to call
these the finest days of the year.
Fair Haven Pond, for instance –
a perfectly level plain of white snow
untrodden as yet by any fisherman
surrounded by snow-clad hills
dark evergreen woods
and reddish oak leaves –
so pure and still.
The last rays of the sun
falling on the Baker Farm
reflect a clear pink color.
Solstice
Long after the sun has set
and downy clouds have turned dark
and the shades of night
have taken possession of the east
some rosy clouds
will be seen in the upper sky
over the portals
of the darkening west.
How swiftly the earth
How swiftly the earth
appears to revolve at sunset,
which at midday
appears to rest.
December 21, 1851
December 21, 1851
A narrow line of
yellow rushes lit up by
the westering sun.
Three men are fishing
on Flint's Pond where the ice
is seven or eight inches thick.
I look back to the wharf rock and see
a narrow line of warm yellow rushes
along the edge of the snowy pond —
they reflect the western light.
The fisherman stands
erect and still on the ice
awaiting our approach
as usual forward to say
that he has had no luck.
He has been here
since early morning
and the fishes won't bite.
They all tell the same story
"fisherman's luck."
The pond floor is
not a bad place
to spend a winter day.
A narrow white line
of snow on the storm side of
every exposed tree.
December 23, 1851
December 25
In a pensive mood
I enjoy the complexion
of the winter sky.
Full of soft pure light
western sky after sunset –
the outlines of pines.
Unless you watch it
you do not know
when the sun
goes down
like a candle
extinguished
without
smoke
and now you cannot
detect a trace.
December 25, 1858
This pure and trackless
road up Brister's Hill tempts us
to start life again.
More snow in the night.
The damp snow covers the panes
darkening the room.
The fishermen sit,
still catching what they went for,
if not many fish.
December 28, 1856
How admirable that
we can never foresee the
day that is to dawn.
He who studies birds’ nests
looks for them in November
and in the Winter.
December 30 1855
How glorious the
perfect stillness and peace of
the winter landscape!
Hearing the whistle
of the locomotive takes
me out of body.
I see clearly what
at other times I only
dimly remember.
The earth's extent
the freedom of all nature
and the sky's depth.
The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December Days
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 © 2009-2024
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