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
Rainbows remind us
Kosmos -- or beauty --is the
Greek name for the world.
August 6, 1852
We live as it were
like a bee asleep in a
thistle blossom.
August 6, 1852
With the goldenrod
summer is an old story –
birds leave off singing.
Fall coolness and clouds --
crickets steadily chirping
in mid-afternoon.
Vermont is but a
succession of parallel
ranges of mountains.
August 6, 2015
Summer gets to be an old story. Birds leave off singing, as flowers blossoming. August 6, 1852
Copious and continuous rain in the night, deluging, soaking rain, with thunder and lightning, beating down the crops; and this morning it is cooler and clearer and windier. August 6, 1856
The wind, or motion of the air, makes it much cooler on the railroad causeway or hills, but in the woods it is as close and melting as before. August 6, 1856
The sun is quite hot to-day, but the wind is cool . . . Methinks that after this date there is commonly a vein of coolness in the wind. August 6, 1854
Very grateful is this anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon. August 6, 1854
Hear the autumnal crickets. August 6, 1855
More dog-days. The sun, now at 9 a. m., has not yet burst through the mists. . . . The sun has not risen clear or even handsomely for some time, nor have we had a good sunset. August 6, 1853
More dog-days. The sun, now at 9 a. m., has not yet burst through the mists. . . . The sun has not risen clear or even handsomely for some time, nor have we had a good sunset. August 6, 1853
Has not the year grown old? . . . It is the signs of the fall that affect us most. It is hard to live in the summer content with it. August 6, 1852
I find a bumblebee asleep in a thistle blossom, having crowded himself in deep amid the dense florets, out of the reach of birds, while the sky was overcast. What a sweet couch! August 6, 1852
How different the feeble twittering of the birds here at sunrise from the full quire of the spring! Only the wood thrush, a huckleberry-bird or two, or chickadee, the scream of a flicker or a jay, or the caw of a crow, and commonly only an alarmed note of a robin. August 6, 1852
A solitary peawai may be heard, perchance, or a red-eye, but no thrashers, or catbirds, or oven-birds, or the jingle of the chewink. August 6, 1852
The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent. August 6, 1858
With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc., cease? August 6, 1852
I find a bumblebee asleep in a thistle blossom, having crowded himself in deep amid the dense florets, out of the reach of birds, while the sky was overcast. What a sweet couch! August 6, 1852
How different the feeble twittering of the birds here at sunrise from the full quire of the spring! Only the wood thrush, a huckleberry-bird or two, or chickadee, the scream of a flicker or a jay, or the caw of a crow, and commonly only an alarmed note of a robin. August 6, 1852
A solitary peawai may be heard, perchance, or a red-eye, but no thrashers, or catbirds, or oven-birds, or the jingle of the chewink. August 6, 1852
The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent. August 6, 1858
With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc., cease? August 6, 1852
Hear a nuthatch. August 6, 1856
Methinks there are few new flowers of late. An abundance of small fruits takes their place. August 6, 1852
The smooth sumach shows its red fruit. The berries of the bristly aralia are turning dark. The wild holly's scarlet fruit is seen and the red cherry. August 6, 1851
Rubus hispidus ripe. August 6, 1856
Do not the flowers of August and September generally resemble suns and stars? — sunflowers and asters and the single flowers of the goldenrod. August 6, 1853
I see the sunflower's broad disk now in gardens, -- a true sun among flowers, monarch of August. August 6, 1853.
Small St. John’s-worts and elodeas, lanceolate loosestrife, arrow heads, small climbing bellflower, also horse-mint on the drier clods. These all over the meadow. August 6, 1855.
Small St. John’s-worts and elodeas, lanceolate loosestrife, arrow heads, small climbing bellflower, also horse-mint on the drier clods. These all over the meadow. August 6, 1855.
Hieracium paniculatum. August 6, 1852
Hieracium scabrous. August 6, 1856
Solidago altissima, a small specimen, a day or two. August 6, 1856
Blue vervain is now very attractive to me, and then there is that interesting progressive history in its rising ring of blossoms. It has a story. August 6, 1852
The wind is very unsteady and flirts our sail about to this side and that. We prefer to sail to-day (Sunday) because there are no haymakers in the meadow. August 6, 1854
Meadow-haying on all hands. August 6, 1855
Hieracium scabrous. August 6, 1856
Solidago altissima, a small specimen, a day or two. August 6, 1856
Blue vervain is now very attractive to me, and then there is that interesting progressive history in its rising ring of blossoms. It has a story. August 6, 1852
The wind is very unsteady and flirts our sail about to this side and that. We prefer to sail to-day (Sunday) because there are no haymakers in the meadow. August 6, 1854
Meadow-haying on all hands. August 6, 1855
We pass haymakers in every meadow. August 6, 1858
The Great Meadows are for the most part shorn . .I see some smaller white maples turned a dull red, — crimsonish, — a slight blush on them. August 6, 1854
The traveller's principal distinction is that he is one who knows less about a country than a native! August 6, 1851
I am, perchance, most and most profitably interested in the things which I already know a little about; I wish to get a clearer notion of what I have already some inkling. August 6, 1851
I am, perchance, most and most profitably interested in the things which I already know a little about; I wish to get a clearer notion of what I have already some inkling. August 6, 1851
After how few steps, how little exertion, the student stands in pine woods above the Solomon's-seal and the cow-wheat, in a place still unaccountably strange and wild to him, and to all civilization! August 6, 1851
It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village. August 6, 1851
I love to follow up the course of the brook and see the cardinal- flowers which stand in its midst above the rocks, their brilliant scarlet the more interesting in this open, but dark, cellar-like wood [and] the small purple fringed orchises with long dense spikes, all flower . . . all flower and color, the leaves subordinated. August 6, 1852
If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius, it has also the sprightly and aerial kingbird to twitter over and lift our thoughts to clouds as white as its own breast. August 6, 1858
The kingfisher is seen hovering steadily over one spot, or hurrying away with a small fish in his mouth, sounding his alarum nevertheless. August 6, 1858
Every board and chip cast into the river is soon occupied by one or more turtles of various sizes. The sternothaerus oftenest climbs up the black willows, even three or more feet. August 6, 1858
It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village. August 6, 1851
I love to follow up the course of the brook and see the cardinal- flowers which stand in its midst above the rocks, their brilliant scarlet the more interesting in this open, but dark, cellar-like wood [and] the small purple fringed orchises with long dense spikes, all flower . . . all flower and color, the leaves subordinated. August 6, 1852
If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius, it has also the sprightly and aerial kingbird to twitter over and lift our thoughts to clouds as white as its own breast. August 6, 1858
The kingfisher is seen hovering steadily over one spot, or hurrying away with a small fish in his mouth, sounding his alarum nevertheless. August 6, 1858
Every board and chip cast into the river is soon occupied by one or more turtles of various sizes. The sternothaerus oftenest climbs up the black willows, even three or more feet. August 6, 1858
Saw a Sternotherus odoratus, caught by the neck and hung in the fork between a twig and main trunk of a black willow, about two feet above water. August 6, 1855
I see seven or eight nighthawks together; dull-buff breasts, with tails short and black beneath. August 6, 1855
Evening is the most interesting season. When the sun is half an hour high I get sight, as it were accidentally, of an elysium beneath me. . . . We distinguish the reflections of the woods perfectly in ponds three miles off. August 6, 1860.
August 6, 2017
All men beholding a rainbow begin to understand the significance of the Greek name for the world, - Kosmos, or beauty. It was designed to impress man. We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower. August 6, 1852.
From half an hour to two hours before sunset, many western mountain-ranges are revealed as the sun declines, one behind another, by their dark outlines and the intervening haze. These are the Green Mountains that we see, but there is no greenness, only a bluish mistiness; and all of Vermont is but a succession of parallel ranges of mountains. August 6, 1860
August 6, 2020
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Midsummer midlife blues
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aromatic Herbs
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Vervain
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries
A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Fringed Orchids
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Solomon's Seal
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Helianthus
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch;
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bobolink
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher
A Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, The Veery(Wilson's thrush)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Oven-bird
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Nighthawk
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker
A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, The Eastern Wood Pewee
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A Season for Sailing
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August Moods
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.
May 16, 1852 ("The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose.”)
May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower.”)
June 5, 1853 (“The heavens and the earth are one flower. The earth is the calyx, the heavens the corolla.”)
July 7, 1852 ("And now that there is an interregnum in the blossoming of flowers, so is there in the singing of the birds.")
July 13, 1854 ("If there is an interregnum in the flowers, it is when berries begin")
July 15, 1858 ("I saw, about west-northwest, a large Green Mountain, perhaps Mansfield")July 28, 1858 ("Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off.")
August 2, 1856 ('A green bittern comes, noiselessly flapping, with stealthy and inquisitive looking to this side the stream and then that, thirty feet above the water.. . .There is a sympathy between its sluggish flight and the sluggish flow of the stream, — its slowly lapsing flight, even like the rills of Musketicook and my own pulse sometimes.")
August 2, 1852 ("It is a new era with the flowers when the small purple fringed orchis, as now, is found in shady swamps standing along the brooks. It appears to be alone of its class. Not to be overlooked, it has so much flower,")August 2, 1856 ('A green bittern comes, noiselessly flapping, with stealthy and inquisitive looking to this side the stream and then that, thirty feet above the water.. . .There is a sympathy between its sluggish flight and the sluggish flow of the stream, — its slowly lapsing flight, even like the rills of Musketicook and my own pulse sometimes.")
August 3, 1852 ("A splendid entire rainbow after a slight shower, with two reflections of it, outermost broad red, passing through yellow to green, then narrow red, then blue or indigo (not plain what), then faint red again. It is too remarkable to be remarked on.")
August 4, 1852 (“The little bees have gone to sleep amid the clethra blossoms in the rain and are not yet aroused.”)
August 4, 1852 ("A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods . . . With its glassy reflecting surface, it is somewhat more heavenly and more full of light than the regions of the air above it")
August 4, 1852 (“The little bees have gone to sleep amid the clethra blossoms in the rain and are not yet aroused.”)
August 4, 1852 ("A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods . . . With its glassy reflecting surface, it is somewhat more heavenly and more full of light than the regions of the air above it")
August 4, 1854 (“The swamp blackberry on high land, ripe a day or two.”);
August 5, 1853 ("Perfect dog-days. To-day is sultry, i. e. hot and cloudy, the air full of mist and here and there misty clouds")
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 . . . I passed as many as sixty or a hundred men thus at work to-day")
August 5, 1858 ("The kingbird, by his activity and lively note and his white breast, keeps the air sweet. He sits now on a dead willow twig, akin to the flecks of mackerel sky, or its reflection in the water")
August 7, 1852 ("a moment when the sun was setting with splendor in the west, his light reflected far and wide through the clarified air after a rain, and a brilliant rainbow, as now, o'erarching the eastern sky.")
August 7, 1853 (“The river is dark and smooth these days, reflecting no brightness but dark clouds, and the goldfinch is heard twittering over.”)
August 7, 1854 ("The cool nocturnal creak of the crickets is heard in the mid-afternoon.")
August 7, 1858 ("The sprightly kingbird glances and twitters above the glossy leaves of the swamp white oak. Perchance this tree, with its leaves glossy above and whitish beneath, best expresses the life of the kingbird and is its own tree.")
August 8, 1854 ("The cardinals are in perfection . . . They are fluviatile, and stand along some river or brook, like myself")
August 9, 1851 ("It is a splendid sunset, a celestial light on all the land, so that all people come to their doors and windows to look on the grass and leaves and buildings and the sky, as the sun’s rays shine through the cloud and the falling rain we are, in fact, in a rainbow.")
August 9, 1853 ("This is the season of small fruits".)
August 9, 1856 ("The goldfinch twittering over. . . already feeding on the thistle seeds.")
August 9, 1856 ("The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over)
August 9, 1860 ("I cast my eyes toward the dim bluish outline of the Green Mountains in the clear red evening sky.")August 10, 1854 (“The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season. They are nuts of sound, --ripened seeds of sound. . . like the sparkle on water.”}
August 10, 1858 ("It is cloudy and misty dog-day weather, with a good deal of wind, and thickening to occasional rain this afternoon.")
August 12, 1858 ("The note of the wood pewee is a prominent and common one now. You see old and young together.")
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?”)
August 15, 1851 ("Cnicus pumilus, pasture thistle. How many insects a single one attracts ! While you sit by it, bee after bee will visit it, and busy himself probing for honey and loading himself with pollen, regardless of your over shadowing presence. He sees its purple flower from afar, and that use there is in its color.")
August 15, 1852 ("The swamp blackberry begins.”)
August 15, 1854 ('A dog-day, comfortably cloudy and cool as well as still")
August 15, 1858 "(Rain in the night and dog-day weather again. ")
August 15, 1858 ("The smaller white maples are very generally turned a dull red, and set off the landscape wonderfully. The Great Meadows are not a quarter shorn yet..")
August 15, 1858 ("The smaller white maples are very generally turned a dull red, and set off the landscape wonderfully. The Great Meadows are not a quarter shorn yet..")
August 18, 1853 (“The season of flowers or of promise may be said to be over, and now is the season of fruits?”)
August 18, 1856 ("The alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound.”)
August 18, 1858 ("Heard a nuthatch.[And a week later. Not heard since spring.]")
August 18, 1860 ("The note of the wood pewee sounds prominent of late.”)
August 20, 1851 ("The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly reached the summit of their spikes.")
August 20, 1851 ("A traveller who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.")
August 20, 1851 ("The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly reached the summit of their spikes.")
August 20, 1851 ("A traveller who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.")
August 21, 1851 ("I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.”)
The progress of the
blue vervain measures the true
time of the season.
August 21, 1851
August 22, 1859 ("The circles of the blue vervain flowers, now risen near to the top, show how far advanced the season is") August 27, 1856 ("The cardinals in this ditch make a splendid show now , . . the most splendid show of cardinal flowers I ever saw.")
August 30, 1853 ("The sun has shone on the earth, and the goldenrod is his fruit. The stars, too, have shone on it, and the asters are their fruit.”)
August 30, 1853 ("The sun has shone on the earth, and the goldenrod is his fruit. The stars, too, have shone on it, and the asters are their fruit.”)
November 1, 1858 ("A man dwells in his native valley like a corolla in its calyx.")
August 6, 2020
(Avesong)
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 6A 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
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