July
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
In the midst of July heat and drought.
The season is trivial as noon.
July 13, 1854
July has been to me a trivial month.
It began hot and continued drying,
then rained some toward the middle,
bringing anticipations of the fall,
and then was hot again about the 20th.
It has been a month of haying, heat, low water, and weeds.
August 2, 1854
I see from this hill
the horizon-edge distinct.
Clear air after rain.
Thoughts driven inward
by clouds and trees reflected
in the still, smooth water.
Sun warm on my back,
I turn round and shade my face --
a beautiful life.
July 21, 1853
Before the first star
I turn round --
there shines the moon
silvering small clouds.
July 27, 1852
Grand sound of the rain
on the leaves of the forest
-- distant, approaching.
July 11, 2015
the sun sets red
July 1. From the hill I perceive that the air is beautifully clear after the rain of yesterday, and not hot; fine grained. The landscape is fine as behind a glass, the horizon-edge distinct. July 1, 1854
July 2. It takes but little distance to make the hills and even the meadows look blue to-day. July 2, 1851
July 3. We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves. July 3, 1840
July 4. Rich and luxuriant uncut grass-lands northward, now waving under the easterly wind. Sweeping waves of light and shade over the whole breadth of his land, imparting wonderful life to the landscape, waves of light and shade pursuing each other over the whole breadth of the landscape like waves hastening to break on a shore. July 4, 1860
July 2. It takes but little distance to make the hills and even the meadows look blue to-day. July 2, 1851
July 3. We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves. July 3, 1840
July 4. Rich and luxuriant uncut grass-lands northward, now waving under the easterly wind. Sweeping waves of light and shade over the whole breadth of his land, imparting wonderful life to the landscape, waves of light and shade pursuing each other over the whole breadth of the landscape like waves hastening to break on a shore. July 4, 1860
Waves of light and shade
over the breadth of the land
sweeping the landscape.
July 5. We have become accustomed to the summer. It has acquired a certain eternity. July 5, 1852
July 6. June, the month for grass and flowers, is now past. . . . Now grass is turning to hay, and flowers to fruits. Already I gather ripe blueberries on the hills. July 6, 1851
Grass and flowers pass.
Now grass is turning to hay,
and flowers to fruits.
July 6, 1851
July 7. I am older than last year; the mornings are further between; the days are fewer. July 7, 1852
July 8. The moon reflected from the rippled surface like a stream of dollars. July 8, 1854
July 9. The jay's note, resounding along a raw wood-side, suggests a singular wildness. July 9, 1852
July 10. Walking up and down a river in torrid weather with only a hat to shade the head. July 10, 1852.
July 11. Another hot day with blue haze, and the sun sets red, threatening still hotter weather, and the very moon looks through a somewhat reddish air at first. July 11, 1859
July 12. This afternoon I gathered ripe blackberries, and felt as if the autumn had commenced. July 12, 1851
Long after starlight
high-pillared clouds of the day
reflect downy light.
July 14. Health is a sound relation to nature. July 14, 1854.
July 15. We seem to be passing, or to have passed, a dividing line between spring and autumn, and begin to descend the long slope toward winter. . . . All is stillness in the fields. My thoughts are driven inward, even as clouds and trees are reflected in the still, smooth water. July 15, 1854
July 16. This is a still thoughtful day, the air full of vapors which shade the earth, preparing rain for the morrow. The air is full of sweetness. The tree is full of poetry. July 16, 1852
July 19. Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then? Methinks my seasons revolve more slowly than those of nature. July 19, 1851
July 20. It is starlight. You see the first star in the southwest, and know not how much earlier you might have seen it had you looked. July 20, 1852
July 23. The mind is subject to moods, as the shadows of clouds pass over the earth. July 23, 1851
Along the river
the memory of roses.
Late rose now in prime.
July 24. The street and fields betray the drought and look more parched than at noon; they look as I feel, -- languid and thin and feeling my nerves. July 24, 1851
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July 25. The fog rises highest over the channel of the river and over the ponds in the woods which are thus revealed. July 25, 1852
How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent! Such little objects check the diffuse tide of our thoughts and bring it to a head, which thrills us. They are such fruits as music, poetry, love, which humanity bears. July 26, 1853
July 26. By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude. The grandest picture in the world is the sunset sky. In your higher moods what man is there to meet? You are of necessity isolated. July 26, 1852
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July 27. On Fair Haven Hill. The slight distraction of picking berries is favorable to a mild, abstracted, poetic mood, to sequestered or transcendental thinking. I return ever more fresh to my mood from such slight interruptions. July 27, 1852
The voice of the loon
in the middle of the night
far over the lake.
July 28. Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month, — that the year was of indefinite promise before, but that, after the first intense heats, we postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year, and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year. July 28, 1854
Magically at dusk
the woods fill with fireflies and
the flute of the thrush.
zphx July 29, 2013
July 30. After midsummer we have a belated feeling as if we had all been idlers, and are forward to see in each sight and hear in each sound some presage of the fall, just as in middle age man anticipates the end of life. July 30, 1852
July 31. I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years. July 31, 1856.
Thoughts of autumn and
the memory of past years
occupy my mind.
July 31, 1856
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July Moods
See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July
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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