JUNE
The year has many
more seasons than recognized
in the almanac.
When the darkness comes
do not the stars like fireflies
show their light for love?
June 16, 1852
I remember the
moaning of the wind on the rocks,
and that you seemed
much nearer to the moon.
June 28, 1852
June 2. These virgin shades of the year, when everything is tender, fresh and green, — how full of promise! June 2, 1854
June 3. On a mountain-top . . the shadows of clouds flitting over the landscape are a never-failing source of amusement. June 3, 1858
June 4. The birds sing at dawn. What sounds to be awakened by! If only our sleep, our dreams, are such as to harmonize with the song, the warbling of the birds, ushering in the day! . June 4, 1852
June 5. The heavens and the earth are one flower. The earth is the calyx, the heavens the corolla. June 5, 1853
June 6. Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting.. . .Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. June 6, 1857
June 6. Already the aspens are trembling again, and a new summer is offered me. I feel a little fluttered in my thoughts, as if I might be too late. June 6, 1857
The aspens trembling
offer me a new summer,
fluttering my thoughts.
June 6, 1857
June 7. I sit in my boat in the twilight by the edge of the river. June 7, 1858
June 8. Within a day or two has begun that season of summer when you see afternoon showers, maybe with thunder, or the threat of them, dark in the horizon, and are uncertain whether to venture far away or without an umbrella. June 8, 1860
June 9. The fishes continue to leap by moonlight. A full moon. June 9, 1854
June 10. Cool but agreeable easterly wind. Streets now beautiful with verdure and shade of elms, under which you look, through an air clear for summer, to the woods in the horizon. June 10, 1853
June 11. Hardly two nights are alike. . . No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons. A book of the seasons, each page of which should be written in its own season and out-of-doors, or in its own locality wherever it may be. June 11, 1851
June 12. Some fields are almost wholly covered with sheep's-sorrel, now turned red . . . It helps thus agreeably to paint the earth, contrasting even at a distance with the greener fields, blue sky, and dark or downy clouds. . . .To the farmer or grazier it is a troublesome weed, but to the landscape-viewer an agreeable red tinge laid on by the painter. I feel well into summer when I see this redness. June 12, 1852
June 13. When I have stayed out thus late many miles from home, and have heard a cricket beginning to chirp louder near me in the grass I have felt that I was not far from home after all, -- began to be weaned from my village home. June 13, 1854
June 14. This seems the true hour to be abroad sauntering far from home. Your thoughts being already turned toward home, your walk in one sense ended. . . Then the dews begin to descend in your mind, and its atmosphere is strained of all impurities; and home is farther away than ever. Here is home; the beauty of the world impresses you. There is a coolness in your mind as in a well. Life is too grand for supper. June 14, 1853
June 15. I sit in the shade of the pines to hear a wood thrush at noon. The ground smells of dry leaves . June 15, 1851
June 16. Do I not live in a garden, — in paradise? I can go out each morning before breakfast — I do — and gather these flowers with which to perfume my chamber where I read and write, all day. June 16, 1854
June 17. The season of hope and promise is past; already the season of small fruits has arrived. We are a little saddened, because we begin to see the interval between our hopes and their fulfillment. June 17, 1854
June 18. Then, when it clears up, the surface of the water gradually becomes more placid and bright. The dimples grow fewer and finer till the prolonged reflections of trees are seen in it, and the water is lit up with a joy which is in sympathy with our own. June 18, 1859
June 19. At length the thunder seems to roll quite across the sky and all round the horizon, even where there are no clouds, and I row homeward in haste. June 19, 1854
June 20. Walking amid the bushes and the ferns just after moonrise, I am refreshed with many sweet scents which I cannot trace to their source. June 20, 1853
June 21. Nature has looked uncommonly bare and dry to me for a day or two. With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical and corresponding moral revolutions. Nature was so shallow all at once I did not know what had attracted me all my life. I was therefore encouraged when, going through a field this evening, I was unexpectedly struck with the beauty of an apple tree. The perception of beauty is a moral test. June 21, 1852
June 22. My pulse must beat with Nature. June 22, 1851
June 22. Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, . . .so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to our selves. All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps. June 22, 1851
June 23. It is what I call a washing day, such as we sometimes have when buttercups first appear in the spring, an agreeably cool and clear and breezy day, when all things appear as if washed bright and shine, and, at this season especially, the sound of the wind rustling the leaves is like the rippling of a stream, and you see the light-colored under side of the still fresh foliage, and a sheeny light is reflected from the bent grass in the meadows. June 23, 1852
June 24. The drifting white downy clouds are objects of a large, diffusive interest.. . . Far away they float in the serene sky, the most inoffensive of objects. What could a man learn by watching the clouds? June 24, 1852
June 25. The Convolvulus sepium, bindweed; morning-glory is the best name. It always refreshes me to see it. . . In the morning and cloudy weather, says Gray. I associate it with holiest morning hours. It may preside over my morning walks and thoughts. There is a flower for every mood of the mind . . . Agreeable is this cool cloudy weather, favorable to thought, after the sultry days. June 25, 1852
June 16. Do I not live in a garden, — in paradise? I can go out each morning before breakfast — I do — and gather these flowers with which to perfume my chamber where I read and write, all day. June 16, 1854
June 17. The season of hope and promise is past; already the season of small fruits has arrived. We are a little saddened, because we begin to see the interval between our hopes and their fulfillment. June 17, 1854
June 18. Then, when it clears up, the surface of the water gradually becomes more placid and bright. The dimples grow fewer and finer till the prolonged reflections of trees are seen in it, and the water is lit up with a joy which is in sympathy with our own. June 18, 1859
June 19. At length the thunder seems to roll quite across the sky and all round the horizon, even where there are no clouds, and I row homeward in haste. June 19, 1854
June 20. Walking amid the bushes and the ferns just after moonrise, I am refreshed with many sweet scents which I cannot trace to their source. June 20, 1853
June 21. Nature has looked uncommonly bare and dry to me for a day or two. With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical and corresponding moral revolutions. Nature was so shallow all at once I did not know what had attracted me all my life. I was therefore encouraged when, going through a field this evening, I was unexpectedly struck with the beauty of an apple tree. The perception of beauty is a moral test. June 21, 1852
June 22. My pulse must beat with Nature. June 22, 1851
June 22. Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, . . .so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to our selves. All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps. June 22, 1851
June 23. It is what I call a washing day, such as we sometimes have when buttercups first appear in the spring, an agreeably cool and clear and breezy day, when all things appear as if washed bright and shine, and, at this season especially, the sound of the wind rustling the leaves is like the rippling of a stream, and you see the light-colored under side of the still fresh foliage, and a sheeny light is reflected from the bent grass in the meadows. June 23, 1852
June 24. The drifting white downy clouds are objects of a large, diffusive interest.. . . Far away they float in the serene sky, the most inoffensive of objects. What could a man learn by watching the clouds? June 24, 1852
June 25. The Convolvulus sepium, bindweed; morning-glory is the best name. It always refreshes me to see it. . . In the morning and cloudy weather, says Gray. I associate it with holiest morning hours. It may preside over my morning walks and thoughts. There is a flower for every mood of the mind . . . Agreeable is this cool cloudy weather, favorable to thought, after the sultry days. June 25, 1852
June 26. Summer returns without its haze. We see infinitely further into the horizon on every side, and the boundaries of the world are enlarged. June 26, 1853
June 27.All the phenomena of nature need be seen from the point of view of wonder and awe, like lightning; and, on the other hand, the lightning itself needs to be regarded with serenity, as the most familiar and innocent phenomena are. June 27,1852
June 28. I have camped out all night on the tops of four mountains, — Wachusett, Saddle-back, Ktaadn, and Monadnock, — and I usually took a ramble over the summit at midnight by moonlight. I remember the moaning of the wind on the rocks, and that you seemed much nearer to the moon .June 28, 1852
June 29. Nature never appears more serene and innocent and fragrant. A hundred white lilies, open to the sun, rest on the surface . . . while devil's-needles are glancing over them. June 29, 1852
June 30. Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; that is, her scenes must be associated with humane affections, such as are associated with one's native place, for instance. She is most significant to a lover. A lover of Nature is preeminently a lover of man. June 30, 1852
June 27.All the phenomena of nature need be seen from the point of view of wonder and awe, like lightning; and, on the other hand, the lightning itself needs to be regarded with serenity, as the most familiar and innocent phenomena are. June 27,1852
June 28. I have camped out all night on the tops of four mountains, — Wachusett, Saddle-back, Ktaadn, and Monadnock, — and I usually took a ramble over the summit at midnight by moonlight. I remember the moaning of the wind on the rocks, and that you seemed much nearer to the moon .June 28, 1852
June 29. Nature never appears more serene and innocent and fragrant. A hundred white lilies, open to the sun, rest on the surface . . . while devil's-needles are glancing over them. June 29, 1852
June 30. Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; that is, her scenes must be associated with humane affections, such as are associated with one's native place, for instance. She is most significant to a lover. A lover of Nature is preeminently a lover of man. June 30, 1852
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, To Know Nature's June Moods.
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 © 2009-2021
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