At this season we
seek to warm ourselves in the
sun as by a fire.
Now leaves are off we
notice the buds prepared for
another season.
As woods grow silent
we attend to the cheerful
notes of chickadees.
This is the season
mere mossy banks attract us –
when greenness is rare.
This is the season
when the leaves are whirled through the
air like flocks of birds . . .
when you see afar
a few clear-yellow leaves on
the tops of birches.
The seasons
and all their changes
are in me –
my moods periodical
not two days alike.
October 26, 2019
Spring is brown; summer, green; autumn, yellow; winter, white; November, gray. October 26, 1857
Hard rain in the night and almost steady rain through the day, the second day. Wind still easterly or northeasterly. October 26, 1857
A driving east or northeast storm. I can see through the drisk only a mile. October 26, 1857
A storm is a new, and in some respects more active, life in nature. October 26, 1857
Another clear cold day, though not so cold as yesterday. October 26, 1855
It is cool today and windier. October 26, 1852
The water is rippled considerably. October 26, 1852
As warm as summer. Cannot wear a thick coat. Sit with windows open. October 26, 1854
I am overtaken by a sudden thunder-shower. October 26, 1860
Larger migrating birds make their appearance. October 26, 1857
The blue-stemmed and white goldenrod apparently survive till winter, -- push up and blossom anew. October 26, 1852
As I go up the back road, see fresh sprouts in bloom on a tall rough goldenrod. October 26, 1853
The dense maple swamp against Potter's pasture is completely bare, and the ground is very thickly strewn with leaves, which conceal the wet places. October 26, 1853
Now leaves are off, or chiefly off, I begin to notice the buds of various form and color and more or less conspicuous, prepared for another season, — partly, too, perhaps, for food for birds. October 26, 1853
I see considerable gossamer on the causeway and elsewhere. October 26, 1854
Many sparrows are flitting past amid the birches and sallows. They are chiefly Fringilla hyemalis. October 26, 1857
The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush. October 26, 1855
Is it the tree sparrows whose jingles I hear? October 26, 1854
[Minott] says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot. October 26, 1858
As the weather grows cooler and the woods more silent, I attend to the cheerful notes of chickadees on their sunny sides. October 26, 1854
The light and sun come to us directly and freely, as if some obstruction had been removed,—the windows of heaven had been washed. October 26, 1855
I see some farmers now cutting up their corn. October 26, 1855
What apples are left out now, I presume that the farmers do not mean to gather. October 26, 1855
Apple trees are generally bare, as well as bass, ash, elm, maple. October 26, 1854
The sugar maples are about bare, except a few small ones. October 26, 1858
The witch-hazel is still freshly in flower October 26, 1855
The sweet Viburnum leaves hang thinly on the bushes and are a dull crimsonish red. October 26, 1855
I see a houstonia in bloom. October 26, 1855
The hillside is slippery with new-fallen white pine leaves. October 26, 1855
The pitch pine leaves not yet quite fallen. October 26, 1857
The leaves of the oaks and hickories have begun to be browned, — lost their brilliancy. October 26, 1855
And a few oak leaves in sheltered nooks do not wither. October 26, 1852
The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later. October 26, 1858
The largest scarlet oak that I remember hereabouts stands in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and is now in its prime. October 26, 1858
Probably you could tell a seedling chestnut from a vigorous sprout, however old or large. . . by the much more rapid growth of the last the first half-dozen years of its existence. October 26, 1860
There are scarcely any chestnuts this year near Britton’s, but I find as many as usual east of Flint’s Pond. October 26, 1860
I return by way of the mocker-nut trees. The squirrels have already begun on them, though the trees are still covered with yellow and brown leaves, and the nuts do not fall. October 26, 1855
A little this side I see a red squirrel dash out from the wall, snatch an apple from amid many on the ground, and, running swiftly up the tree with it, proceed to eat it, sitting on a smooth dead limb, with its back to the wind and its tail curled close over its back. October 26, 1855
Yellowish leaves still adhere to the very tops of the birches. October 26, 1857
This is the season of the fall when the leaves are whirled through the air like flocks of birds, the season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches. October 26, 1860
At this season we seek warm sunny lees and hillsides, as that under the pitch pines by Walden shore, where we cuddle and warm ourselves in the sun as by a fire, where we may get some of its reflected as well as direct heat. October 26, 1852
These regular phenomena of the seasons get at last to be — they were at first, of course — simply and plainly phenomena or phases of my life. October 26, 1857
The seasons and all their changes are in me. October 26, 1857
Almost I believe the Concord would not rise and overflow its banks again, were I not here. October 26, 1857
After a while I learn what my moods and seasons are. I would have nothing subtracted. I can imagine nothing added. October 26, 1857
My moods are thus periodical, not two days in my year alike. October 26, 1857
The perfect correspondence of Nature to man, so that he is at home in her! October 26, 1857
It is surprising how any reminiscence of a different season of the year affects us. October 26, 1853
You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show. October 26, 1853
When I meet with any such in my Journal, it affects me as poetry. I appreciate that other season and that particular phenomenon more than at the time. Only the rarest flower, the purest melody, of the season thus comes down to us. October 26, 1853
The world so seen is all one spring, and full of beauty. October 26, 1853
My loftiest thought is somewhat like an eagle that suddenly comes into the field of view, suggesting great things and thrilling the beholder, as if it were bound hitherward with a message for me; but it comes no nearer, but circles and soars away, growing dimmer, disappointing me, till it is lost behind a cliff or a cloud. October 26, 1857
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons Revolve
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.
*****
October 26, 2023
*****
April 24, 1854 ( "I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself.")
April, 25 1858 ("Goodwin says he heard a stake-driver several days ago.")May 9, 1853 ("The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow. ");
May 10, 1852 ("We remember autumn to best advantage in the spring; the finest aroma of it reaches us then.")
May 17, 1852 ("The birch leaves are so small that you see the landscape through the tree, and they are like silvery and green spangles in the sun, fluttering about the tree.")
May 20, 1856 ("See and hear a stake-driver in the swamp. It took one short pull at its pump and stopped.")June 6, 1857 (“A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. . . . Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. ”)
June 11, 1851 (“Hardly two nights are alike. . . .No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons.”)
June 11, 1860 ("Just as we are shoving away from this isle, I hear a sound just like a small dog barking hoarsely, and, looking up, see it was made by a bittern (Ardea minor), a pair of which flap over the meadows and probably nest in some tussock thereabouts.");
June 15, 1857 ("as I passed a swamp, a bittern boomed.")
June 15, 1851 ("The sound of the stake-driver at a distance, — like that made by a man pumping in a neighboring farmyard,. . ., and I can imagine like driving a stake in a meadow. The pumper. . . .before I was further off than I thought, so now I was nearer than I thought")
July 22, 1859 ("Heard from a bittern, a peculiar hoarse, grating note, lazily uttered as it flew over the meadows. A bittern's croak: a sound perfectly becoming the bird, as far as possible from music.")
August 7, 1853("The objects I behold correspond to my mood")
August 14, 1856 ("All the Flint's Pond wood-paths are strewn with these gay-spotted chestnut leaves")October 6, 1858 ("Only one of the large maples on the Common is yet on fire. ");
October 10, 1856 ("This afternoon it is 80°, . . . I lie with window wide open under a single sheet most of the night").
October 10, 1851 ("The chickadee, sounding all alone, now that birds are getting scarce, reminds me of the winter, in which it almost alone is heard.")
October 12, 1858 ("The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. ")
October 13, 1857 ("I am obliged to sit with my window wide open all the evening as well as all day. It is the earlier Indian summer.")
October 13, 1859 ("The chickadee seems to lisp a sweeter note")
October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools, the note of the chickadee sounds cheerfully winteryish.") October 15, 1857 ("The ten days — at least — before this were plainly Indian summer. They were remarkably pleasant and warm. The latter half I sat and slept with an open window,")
October 18, 1856 ("The sugar maples are now in their glory, all aglow with yellow, red, and green.”);
October 18, 1858 ("The large sugar maples on the Common are now at the height of their beauty. “);
October 18, 1856 ("A-chestnutting down Turnpike and across to Britton's, thinking that the rain now added to the frosts would relax the burs which were open and let the nuts drop.")
October 20, 1856 ("Thus, of late, when the season is declining, many birds have departed, and our thoughts are turned towards winter . . . we hear the jay again more frequently, and the chickadees are more numerous and lively and familiar and utter their phebe note,") October 21, 1855 ("The scarlet oak is very bright and conspicuous. How finely its leaves are out against the sky with sharp points, especially near the top of the tree! ")
October 21, 1855 ("I sit with an open window, it is so warm.") October 21, 1858 ("The large sugar maples on the Common are in the midst of their fall to-day. ")
October 22, 1855 ("I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines,")
October 22, 1857("Chestnut trees are almost bare. Now is just the time for chestnuts.")
October 22, 1855 ("I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines,")
October 23, 1855 ("Now is the time for chestnuts. A stone cast against the trees shakes them down in showers upon one’s head and shoulders."
October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape") October 24, 1857 ("The sugar maple leaves are now falling fast.")
October 24, 1855 ("The rich yellow and scarlet leaves of the sugar maple on the Common now thickly cover the grass in great circles about the trees, and, half having fallen, look like the reflection of the trees in water lighting up the Common, reflecting light even to the surrounding houses.")
October 24, 1858 ("The Populus grandidentata and sugar maple . . .have lost the greater part of their leaves.")
October 24, 1858 ("The scarlet oak. . . is now completely scarlet and apparently has been so a few days. This alone of our indigenous deciduous trees . . .is now in its glory. ") October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape"); October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.") October 25, 1858 ("I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. . . .At the pond the black birches are bare");
October 25, 1853 ("The white maples are completely bare. ")
October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.")
October 25, 1858 ("I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. . . .At the pond the black birches are bare")
October 25, 1858 ("Now that the leaves are fallen (for a few days), the long yellow buds (often red-pointed) which sleep along the twigs of the S. discolor are very conspicuous and quite interesting, already even carrying our thoughts for ward to spring. I noticed them first on the 22d. They may be put with the azalea buds already noticed. Even bleak and barren November wears these gems on her breast in sign of the coming year.")
October 27, 1853 ("Song sparrows flitting about, with the three spots on breast")October 28, 1857 ("All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight from one of heaven’s west windows")
October 28, 1852 (“Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape.”) October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”)October 30, 1855 ("Going to the new cemetery, I see that the scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness; perhaps the latest of the oaks.")
October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”)
October 31, 1854 ("Sat with open window for a week.”)
October 31, 1854 ("[W]e have had remarkably warm and pleasant Indian summer, with frequent frosts")
November 1, 1858 ("If you wish to count the scarlet oaks. do it now. Stand on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high and the sky is clear, and every one within range of your vision will be revealed. ")
November 6, 1857 ("seventy years ago . . .there was a large old chestnut by the roadside there, which being cut, two sprouts came up which have become the largest chestnut trees by the wall now.")
November 8, 1855 ("I can sit with my window open and no fire. Much warmer than this time last year.")
November 11, 1859 ("October 24th, riding home from Acton, I saw the withered leaves blown from an oak by the roadside dashing off, gyrating, and surging upward into the air, so exactly like a flock of birds sporting with one another that, for a minute at least, I could not be sure they were not birds.")
December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring.");
December 11, 1858 ("The large scarlet oak in the cemetery has leaves on the lower limbs near the trunk just like the large white oaks now.")
December 22, 1859 ("I see in the chestnut woods near Flint's Pond where squirrels have collected the small chestnut burs left the trunks on the snow.") January 10, 1856 ("The great yellow and red forward-looking buds of the azalea")
January 19, 1859 {"Our largest scarlet oak (by the Hollow), some three feet diameter at three feet from ground, has more leaves than the large white oak close by.")
January 25, 1858 ("What a rich book might be made about buds") March 22, 1859 ("The great scarlet oak has now lost almost every leaf, while the white oak near it still retains them.")
*****
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, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024
