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
How can that depth be
fathomed where a man may see
himself reflected?
August 17, 2017
We have cooler nights of late. August 17, 1860
Dawn . . . The creak of the crickets sounds louder. August 17, 1852
The cricket, the gurgling stream, the rushing wind amid the trees, all speak to me soberly yet encouragingly of the steady onward progress of the universe. August 17, 1851
The woods are very still. I hear only a faint peep or twitter from one bird, then the never-failing wood thrush, it being about sunrise. August 17, 1852.
Still hear the chip-bird early in the morning, though not so generally as earlier in the season. August 17, 1858.
I see a solitary goldfinch now and then. August 17, 1851
I see a goldfinch go twittering through the still, louring day, and am reminded of the peeping flocks which will soon herald the thoughtful season. August 17, 1851
The farmers are just finishing their meadow-haying . . . For six weeks or more this has been the farmer's work, to shave the surface of the fields and meadows clean. This is done all over the country. The razor is passed over these parts of nature's face the country over . . . It is the summer's enterprise. And if we were a more poetic people, horns would be blown to celebrate its completion. There might be a Haymakers' Day. August 17, 1851
The aftermath on early mown fields is a very beautiful green. August 17, 1858
The Trichostema dichotomum, — not only its bright blue flower above the sand, but its strong wormwood scent which belongs to the season, -- feed my spirit. August 17, 1851
A Hypericum Canadense well out at 2 p. m. August 17, 1856.
Indigo-weed still in bloom by the dry wood-path-side.
August 17, 1851
The lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now. August 17, 1851.
The high blackberries are now in their prime; the richest berry we have. August 17, 1853.
The high blackberries --
the richest berry we have
are now in their prime.
Rain, rain, rain again! . . . bad for potatoes, making them rot; makes the fruit now ripening decay, — apples, etc August 17, 1853
The dog-days, the foggy and mouldy days, are not over yet. The clouds are like a mildew which over spreads the sky. It is sticky weather, and the air is filled with the scent of decaying fungi. August 17, 1858
It has promised rain all day; cloudy and still and rather cool; from time to time a few drops gently spitting, but no shower. The landscape wears a sober autumnal look. I hear a drop or two on my hat. August 17, 1851
Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us. August 17, 1858
For a day or two it has been quite cool, a coolness that was felt even when sitting by an open window in a thin coat on the west side of the house in the morning, and you naturally sought the sun at that hour. The coolness concentrated your thought. . . I feel as if this coolness would do me good. If it only makes my life more pensive! . . . My life flows with a deeper current. August 17, 1851
The very brooks seem fuller of reflections than they were! . . .The shallowest is all at once unfathomable. How can that depth be fathomed where a man may see himself reflected? August 17, 1851
For a day or two it has been quite cool, a coolness that was felt even when sitting by an open window in a thin coat on the west side of the house in the morning, and you naturally sought the sun at that hour. The coolness concentrated your thought. . . I feel as if this coolness would do me good. If it only makes my life more pensive! . . . My life flows with a deeper current. August 17, 1851
The very brooks seem fuller of reflections than they were! . . .The shallowest is all at once unfathomable. How can that depth be fathomed where a man may see himself reflected? August 17, 1851
Ah! if I could so live that . . . when small fruits are ripe, my fruits might be ripe also! that I could match nature always with my moods ! that in each season when some part of nature especially flourishes, then a corresponding part of me may not fail to flourish! August 17, 1851
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
August 12, 1851("I hear a wood thrush even now, long before sunrise ... The wood thrush, that beautiful singer, inviting the day once more to enter his pine woods.")September 2, 1851 ("The first coolness is welcome, so serious and fertile of thought.")
August 3, 1856 ("High blackberries beginning; a few ripe.")
August 4, 1856 ("Here and there the high blackberry, just beginning, towers over all. "):
August 10, 1853 ("August, royal and rich . . .It is glorious to see those great shining high blackberries, now partly ripe .")
August 22, 1852 ("Is not the high blackberry our finest berry?")
August 23, 1856 ("Now for high blackberries,")
August 27, 1857 ("Detected a, to me, new kind of high blackberry on the edge of the cliff beyond Conant's wall .")
August 28, 1856 (“High blackberries still to be had.”);
August 31, 1858 (“High blackberries are abundant in Britton’s field. August 21, 1857("An abundance of fine high blackberries behind Britton's old camp on the Lincoln road, now in their prime there, which have been overlooked. Is it not our richest fruit?")
September 1, 1857 (". High blackberries are still in their prime on Lee's Cliff.")
August 23, 1856 ("Now for high blackberries,")
August 27, 1857 ("Detected a, to me, new kind of high blackberry on the edge of the cliff beyond Conant's wall .")
August 28, 1856 (“High blackberries still to be had.”);
August 31, 1858 (“High blackberries are abundant in Britton’s field. August 21, 1857("An abundance of fine high blackberries behind Britton's old camp on the Lincoln road, now in their prime there, which have been overlooked. Is it not our richest fruit?")
September 1, 1857 (". High blackberries are still in their prime on Lee's Cliff.")
August 5, 1854 ("we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion or resting in the shade, while the boys are turning the grass to the sun. I passed as many as sixty or a hundred men thus at work to-day.")
August 21, 1851 ("Mowing to some extent improves the landscape to the eye of the walker. The aftermath, so fresh and green, begins now to recall the spring to my mind")
August 22, 1854 (" There are three or four haymakers still at work in the Great Meadows, though but very few acres are left uncut.")
July 31, 1856("Trichostema has now for some time been springing up in the fields, giving out its aromatic scent when bruised, and I see one ready to open")
August 9, 1851("The Trichostema dichotomum is quite beautiful now in the cool of the morning")
August 11, 1853("Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle")
August 13, 1856 ("Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime? — The polygala roots, blue-curls, wormwood, pennyroyal, Solidago odora, rough sunflowers, horse-mint, etc., etc. Does not the season require this tonic?")
July 31, 1855 ("Have observed the twittering over of goldfinches for a week.")
July 31, 1859 (" The goldfinch's note, the cool watery twitter, is more prominent now")
August 4, 1852 (". I hear the singular watery twitter of the goldfinch, ter tweeter e et or e ee, as it ricochets over, he and his russet female")
August 6, 1852 ("With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch")
August 7, 1853 ("the goldfinch is heard twittering ove")
August 9, 1856("the goldfinch twittering over. . . . These are already feeding on the thistle seeds")
August 10, 1853 (" The heat is furnace-like . . .. The goldfinch sings .")
August 10, 1854 (" The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season.")
August 11, 1858 ("In the spring I heard it imitate the thrasher exactly, before that bird had arrived, and now it imitates the purple finch as perfectly, after the latter bird has ceased to sing! It is a surprising vocalist. It did not cease singing till I disturbed it by my nearer approach, and then it went off with its usual mew, succeeded by its watery twitter in its ricochet flight")
August 12, 1854 ( I see goldfinches nowadays on the lanceolate thistles, apparently after the seeds"")
August 13.. August 13, 1854 ( I see where the pasture thistles have apparently been picked to pieces (for their seeds? by the goldfinch?), and the seedless down strews the ground"")
August 14, 1858 (" The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it")
August 14, 1858 ("The goldfinch, a prevailing note, with variations into a fine song. ")
August 15, 1854 ("On the top of the Hill I see the goldfinch eating the seeds of the Canada thistle")
August 16, 1858 ("goldfinches twitter over.")
August 25, 1852 ("I hear no birds sing these days, only . . . the mew of a catbird, the link link of a bobolink, or the twitter of a goldfinch, all faint and rare")
August 26, 1856("As I stand there, a young male goldfinch darts away with a twitter from a spear thistle top close to my side, and, alighting near, makes frequent returns as near to me and the thistle as it dares pass")
August 28, 1856 ("A goldfinch twitters away from every thistle now, and soon returns to it when I am past. I see the ground strewn with the thistle-down they have scattered on every side")
September 4, 1859 ("Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp, — and on them all you are pretty sure to see one or two humblebees. . . .(On many you see also the splendid goldfinch, yellow and black like the humble-bee.) The thistles beloved of humblebees and goldfinches.")
September 4, 1860 ("The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces.")
August 13, 1858 ("The dullish-blue or lead-colored Viburnum dentatum berries are now seen, not long, overhanging the side of the river.")
August 14, 1852 ("Viburnum dentatum berries blue.")
August 19, 1852 ("The Viburnum dentatum berries are now blue.")
August 27, 1856 ("Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull lead colored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.")
August 28, 1852 ("The viburnums, dentatum and nudum, are in their prime.")
September 26, 1854 ("Viburnum dentatum berries still hold on.")
August 27, 1856 ("Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull lead colored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.")
August 28, 1852 ("The viburnums, dentatum and nudum, are in their prime.")
September 26, 1854 ("Viburnum dentatum berries still hold on.")
July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening")
August 15, 1859 ("Hypericum Canadense, Canadian St. John's-wort, distinguished by its red capsules.")
August 19, 1856 ("I see Hypericum Canadense and mutilum abundantly open at 3 p. m")
August 27, 1856 ("Hypericum Canadense and mutilum now pretty generally open at 4 P.M., thus late in the season")
September 15, 1856 ("The hypericums generally appear to be now about done. I see none.")
October 2, 1856 ("Now and then I see a Hypericum Canadense flower still. The leaves, . . . turned crimson.")
October 13, 1859 ("Many of the small hypericums, mutilum and Canadense, have survived the frosts as yet, after all")
October 19, 1856 ("The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost")
September 15, 1856 ("The hypericums generally appear to be now about done. I see none.")
October 2, 1856 ("Now and then I see a Hypericum Canadense flower still. The leaves, . . . turned crimson.")
October 13, 1859 ("Many of the small hypericums, mutilum and Canadense, have survived the frosts as yet, after all")
October 19, 1856 ("The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost")
July 24, 1852 ("There is a short, fresh green on the shorn fields, the aftermath. When the first crop of grass is off, and the aftermath springs, the year has passed its culmination.")
July 24, 1860 ("Many a field where the grass has been cut shows now a fresh and very lit-up light green as you look toward the sun.")
July 28, 1852 ("There is a yellowish light now from a low, tufted, yellowish, broad-leaved grass, in fields that have been mown.")
August 4, 1853 ("The low fields which have been mown now look very green again in consequence of the rain, as if it were a second spring.)
August 7, 1852 ("At this season we have gentle rain-storms, making the aftermath green . . . as if it were a second spring .")
August 10, 1854 ("As I go along the railroad, I observe the darker green of early-mown fields. ")
August 21, 1851 ("The aftermath, so fresh and green, begins now to recall the spring to my mind.")
June 3, 1851 ("I noticed the indigo-weed a week or two ago pushing up like asparagus.")
July 10, 1855 ("Indigo out. ")
July 17, 1852 ("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.")
July 25, 1851 ("Bunches of indigo, still in bloom, more numerously than anywhere that I remember.")
August 6, 1858 ("indigo, . . . is still abundantly in bloom. ")
October 10, 1858 ("The indigo-weed, now partly turned black and broken off, blows about the pastures like the flyaway grass.")
October 22, 1859 ("In my blustering walk over the Mason and Hunt pastures yesterday, I saw much of the withered indigo-weed which was broken off and blowing about, and the seeds in its numerous black pods rattling like the rattlepod though not nearly so loud")
February 28, 1860 ("As I stood by Eagle Field wall, I heard a fine rattling sound, produced by the wind on some dry weeds at my elbow. It was occasioned by the wind rattling the fine seeds in those pods of the indigo-weed which were still closed, — a distinct rattling din which drew my attention to it, — like a small Indian's calabash. Not a mere rustling of dry weeds, but the shaking of a rattle, or a hundred rattles, beside.")
October 5, 1858 ("I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard.”)
October 7, 1860 ("Now and for a week the chip-birds in flocks; the withered grass and weeds, etc., alive with them.")
August 7, 1854 ("Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness? . . . Already some of my small thoughts — fruit of my spring life — are ripe, like the berries which feed the first broods of birds.")
September 14, 1859 ("Like the fruits, when cooler weather and frosts arrive, we too are braced and ripened. When we shift from the shady to the sunny side of the house, . . . our green and leafy and pulpy thoughts acquire color and flavor, and perchance a sweet nuttiness at last")
September 14, 1859 ("Like the fruits, when cooler weather and frosts arrive, we too are braced and ripened. When we shift from the shady to the sunny side of the house, . . . our green and leafy and pulpy thoughts acquire color and flavor, and perchance a sweet nuttiness at last")
January 30, 1854 ("It is for man the seasons and all their fruits exist. The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of his brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. Then is the great harvest of the year, the harvest of thought.")
April 18, 1855 ("Am overtaken by a sudden sun-shower, after which a rainbow.”)
May 30, 1857 ("When first I had sheltered myself under the rock, I began at once to look out on the pond with new eyes")
June 14, 1855 (“It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under, sitting on the paddles, . . . It is very pleasant to lie there half an hour close to the edge of the water and see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble”);
July 22, 1858 ("Took refuge from a shower under our boat at Clamshell; staid an hour at least. A thunderbolt fell close by.")
August 9, 1851 ("I meet the rain at the edge of the wood, and take refuge under the thickest leaves, where not a drop reaches me, and, at the end of half an hour, the renewed singing of the birds alone advertises me that the rain has ceased")
August 17, 1858 (“Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us.”)
June 14, 1855 (“It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under, sitting on the paddles, . . . It is very pleasant to lie there half an hour close to the edge of the water and see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble”);
July 22, 1858 ("Took refuge from a shower under our boat at Clamshell; staid an hour at least. A thunderbolt fell close by.")
August 9, 1851 ("I meet the rain at the edge of the wood, and take refuge under the thickest leaves, where not a drop reaches me, and, at the end of half an hour, the renewed singing of the birds alone advertises me that the rain has ceased")
August 17, 1858 (“Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us.”)
August 19, 1851. "The poet must be continually watching the moods of his mind,").
August 28, 1851 ("The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods.")
August 28, 1851 ("The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods.")
October 17, 1859 ("The rain drives me from my berrying and we take shelter under a tree. It is worth the while to sit under the lee of an apple tree trunk in the rain, if only to study the bark and its inhabitants.")
August 16, 2017
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next,
and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 17
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 © 2009-2022
tinyurl.com/HDT17AUGUST
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