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.
That grand old poem
called Winter is round again
as fast as snowflakes.
It is wonderful
that old men do not lose
their reckoning.
It was summer and
now again it is Winter –
Nature loves this rhyme.
Nature loves this rhyme
so well that she never tires
of repeating it.
So moderate and
so simple is the Winter –
so sweet and wholesome.
A perfect poem –
epic in blank verse with a
million tinkling rhymes.
The winters come now
as fast as snowflakes. Summer
was, now winter is.
Henry Thoreau
December 7, 1856
December 7, 2018
Perhaps the warmest day yet. True Indian summer. December 7, 1852
It is a fair, sunny, and warm day in the woods for the season. December 7, 1857
The shepherd's-purse is in full bloom; the andromeda not turned red. December 7, 1852
Saw a pile of snow-fleas in a rut in the wood-path, six or seven inches long and three quarters of an inch high, to the eye exactly like powder, as if a sportsman had spilled it from his flask. December 7, 1852
Running the long northwest side of Richardson’s Fair Haven lot. December 7, 1857
We eat our dinners on the middle of the line, amid the young oaks in a sheltered and very unfrequented place. December 7, 1857
I cut some leafy shrub oaks and cast them down for a dry and springy seat. December 7, 1857
As I sit there amid the sweet-fern, talking with my man Briney, I observe that the recent shoots of the sweet-fern — which, like many larger bushes and trees, have a few leaves in a tuft still at their extremities – toward the sun are densely covered with a bright, warm, silvery down, which looks like frost, so thick and white. December 7, 1857
Looking the other way, I see none of it, but the bare reddish twigs. December 7, 1857
This is a cheering and compensating discovery in my otherwise barren work. December 7, 1857
I owe thus to my weeks at surveying a few such slight but positive discoveries. December 7, 1857
I would rather sit at this table with the sweet-fern twigs between me and the sun than at the king’s. December 7, 1857
You will see full-grown woods where the oaks and pines or birches are separated by right lines, growing in squares or other rectilinear figures, because different lots were cut at different times. December 7, 1856
The swamp white oak leaves are like the shrub oak in having two colors above and beneath. December 7, 1856
The shepherd's-purse is in full bloom; the andromeda not turned red. December 7, 1852
Saw a pile of snow-fleas in a rut in the wood-path, six or seven inches long and three quarters of an inch high, to the eye exactly like powder, as if a sportsman had spilled it from his flask. December 7, 1852
Running the long northwest side of Richardson’s Fair Haven lot. December 7, 1857
We eat our dinners on the middle of the line, amid the young oaks in a sheltered and very unfrequented place. December 7, 1857
I cut some leafy shrub oaks and cast them down for a dry and springy seat. December 7, 1857
As I sit there amid the sweet-fern, talking with my man Briney, I observe that the recent shoots of the sweet-fern — which, like many larger bushes and trees, have a few leaves in a tuft still at their extremities – toward the sun are densely covered with a bright, warm, silvery down, which looks like frost, so thick and white. December 7, 1857
Looking the other way, I see none of it, but the bare reddish twigs. December 7, 1857
This is a cheering and compensating discovery in my otherwise barren work. December 7, 1857
I owe thus to my weeks at surveying a few such slight but positive discoveries. December 7, 1857
I would rather sit at this table with the sweet-fern twigs between me and the sun than at the king’s. December 7, 1857
You will see full-grown woods where the oaks and pines or birches are separated by right lines, growing in squares or other rectilinear figures, because different lots were cut at different times. December 7, 1856
The swamp white oak leaves are like the shrub oak in having two colors above and beneath. December 7, 1856
They are considerably curled, so as to show their silvery lining, though firm. December 7, 1856
Hardy and handsome, with a fair silver winter lining. December 7, 1856
In the latter part of November and now, before the snow, I am attracted by the numerous small evergreens on the forest floor, now most conspicuous, especially the very beautiful Lycopodium dendroideum, somewhat cylindrical, and also, in this grove, the variety obscurum of various forms, surmounted by the effete spikes, some with a spiral or screw-like arrangement of the fan-like leaves, some spreading and drooping. December 7, 1853
It is like looking down on evergreen trees. December 7, 1853
And the L. lucidulum of the swamps, forming broad, thick patches of a clear liquid green, with its curving fingers; also the pretty little fingers of the cylindrical L. clavatum, or club-moss, zig zagging amid the dry leaves; not to mention the spreading openwork umbrellas of the L. complanatum, or flat club-moss, all with spikes still. December 7, 1853
Also the liquid wet glossy leaves of the Chimaphila (winter or snow-loving) umbellata, with its dry fruit. December 7, 1853
Not to mention the still green Mitchella repens [partridge-berry] and checkerberry in shelter, both with fruit; gold-thread; Pyrola secunda, with drooping curled-back leaves, and other pyrolas. December 7, 1853
There is the mountain laurel, too. December 7, 1853
The terminal shield fern is quite fresh and green, and a common thin fern, though fallen. December 7, 1853
I observe the beds of greenish cladonia lichens. December 7, 1853
As I sit under Lee's Cliff, where the snow is melted, amid sere pennyroyal and frost-bitten catnep, I look over my shoulder upon an arctic scene. December 7, 1856
That grand old poem called Winter is round again without any connivance of mine, December 7, 1856
I see with surprise the pond a dumb white surface of ice speckled with snow, just as so many winters before, where so lately were lapsing waves or smooth reflecting water. December 7, 1856
I see the holes which the pickerel-fisher has made, and I see him, too, retreating over the hills, drawing his sled behind him. December 7, 1856
It seemed as if winter had come without any interval since midsummer, . . .It was as if I had dreamed it. December 7, 1856
But I see that the farmers have had time to gather their harvests as usual, and the seasons have revolved as slowly as in the first autumn of my life. December 7, 1856
The winters come now as fast as snowflakes. It is wonderful that old men do not lose their reckoning. It was summer, and now again it is winter. Nature loves this rhyme so well that she never tires of repeating it. December 7, 1856
So sweet and wholesome is the winter, so simple and moderate, so satisfactory and perfect, that her children will never weary of it. December 7, 1856
What a poem! an epic in blank verse, enriched with a million tinkling rhymes. December 7, 1856
It is solid beauty. It has been subjected to the vicissitudes of millions of years of the gods, and not a single superfluous ornament remains. December 7, 1856
Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond. December 7, 1856
I keep mostly to the smooth ice about a rod wide next the shore commonly, where there was an overflow a day or two ago. December 7, 1856
I see the track of one skater who has preceded me this morning. December 7, 1856
Now I go shaking over hobbly places, now shoot over a bridge of ice only a foot wide between the water and the shore at a bend December 7, 1856
Now I suddenly see the trembling surface of water where I thought were black spots of ice only around me. December 7, 1856
I am confined to a very narrow edging of ice in the meadow, gliding with unexpected ease through withered sedge, . . . winding between the button-bushes, and following narrow threadings of ice amid the sedge, which bring me out to clear fields unexpectedly. December 7, 1856
Occasionally I am obliged to take a few strokes over black and thin-looking ice, where the neighboring bank is springy, and am slow to acquire confidence in it, but, returning, how bold I am! December 7, 1856
Where the meadow seemed only sedge and snow, I find a complete ice connection. December 7, 1856
At Cardinal Shore, as usual, there is a great crescent of hobbly ice, . ..mottled black and white, and is not yet safe. December 7, 1856
Now I glide over a field of white air-cells close to the surface,. . . cutting through with a sharp crackling sound. December 7, 1856
There are many of those singular spider-shaped dark places amid the white ice, where the surface water has run through some days ago. December 7, 1856
As I enter on Fair Haven Pond, I see already three pickerel-fishers retreating from it, drawing a sled through the Baker Farm, and see where they have been fishing, by the shining chips of ice about the holes. December 7, 1856
Others were here even yesterday, as it appears. The pond must have been frozen by the 4th at least. December 7, 1856
The ice appears to be but three or four inches thick. December 7, 1856
Saw a wood tortoise stirring in the now open brook in Hubbard's Swamp. December 7, 1853
In a ditch near by, under ice half an inch thick, I saw a painted tortoise moving about. December 7, 1852
I sent two and a half bushels of my cranberries to Boston and got four dollars for them December 7 , 1853
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer
Note “checkerberry" is another name for American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens).
What HDT calls “wintergreen” is Chimaphila umbellata, a/k/a pipsissewa. See Checkerberry cum Wintergreen.
*****
March 4, 1854 ("In Hubbard's maple swamp I see the evergreen leaves of the gold-thread as well as the mitchella and large pyrola.")
March 7, 1855 ("The Pyrola secunda is a perfect evergreen. It has lost none of its color or freshness, with its thin ovate finely serrate leaves, revealed now the snow is gone.”)
April 19 1852 ("How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact! suggesting what worlds remain to be unveiled. That phenomenon of the andromeda seen against the sun cheers me exceedingly. .... It is a natural magic. These little leaves are the stained windows in the cathedral of my world.”)
April 24, 1852 (“Gold-thread, an evergreen, still bright in the swamps.”)
May 17, 1857 (“Gold-thread is abundantly out at Trillium Woods.”)
July 2, 1859 ("Mitchella repens is abundantly out.")
July 3, 1859 ("The Mitchella repens, so abundant now in the north west part of Hubbard's Grove, emits a strong astringent cherry-like scent as I walk over it, now that it is so abundantly in bloom, which is agreeable to me, — spotting the ground with its downy-looking white flowers.”)
July 19, 1851 (" Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?”)
October 15, 1859 (“The little leaves of the mitchella, with a whitish midrib and veins, lying generally flat on the mossy ground, perhaps about the base of a tree, with their bright-scarlet twin berries sprinkled over them, may properly be said to checker the ground. Now, particularly, they are noticed amid the fallen leaves. ”)
October 16, 1860 (" I observe at a distance an oak wood- lot some twenty years old, with a dense narrow edging of pitch pines. . . I understand it and read its history easily before I get to it.")
October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum.. . .The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”);
October 29, 1858 (“With the fall of the white pine, etc., the Pyrola umbellata and the lycopodiums, and even evergreen ferns, suddenly emerge as from obscurity. If these plants are to be evergreen, how much they require this brown and withered carpet to be spread under them for effect. Now, too, the light is let in to show them.”)
November 2, 1857 (“The evergreen ferns and lycopodiums now have their day; now is the flower of their age, and their greenness is appreciated. They are much the clearest and most liquid green in the woods”)
November 3, 1852 (“Shepherd's-purse abundant still in gardens.”)
July 2, 1859 ("Mitchella repens is abundantly out.")
July 3, 1859 ("The Mitchella repens, so abundant now in the north west part of Hubbard's Grove, emits a strong astringent cherry-like scent as I walk over it, now that it is so abundantly in bloom, which is agreeable to me, — spotting the ground with its downy-looking white flowers.”)
July 19, 1851 (" Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?”)
October 15, 1859 (“The little leaves of the mitchella, with a whitish midrib and veins, lying generally flat on the mossy ground, perhaps about the base of a tree, with their bright-scarlet twin berries sprinkled over them, may properly be said to checker the ground. Now, particularly, they are noticed amid the fallen leaves. ”)
October 16, 1860 (" I observe at a distance an oak wood- lot some twenty years old, with a dense narrow edging of pitch pines. . . I understand it and read its history easily before I get to it.")
October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum.. . .The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”);
October 29, 1858 (“With the fall of the white pine, etc., the Pyrola umbellata and the lycopodiums, and even evergreen ferns, suddenly emerge as from obscurity. If these plants are to be evergreen, how much they require this brown and withered carpet to be spread under them for effect. Now, too, the light is let in to show them.”)
November 2, 1857 (“The evergreen ferns and lycopodiums now have their day; now is the flower of their age, and their greenness is appreciated. They are much the clearest and most liquid green in the woods”)
November 3, 1852 (“Shepherd's-purse abundant still in gardens.”)
November 5, 1855 (“I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers.”)
November 5, 1857 ("The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green.”)
November 7, 1858 ("I see Lycopodium dendroideum which has not yet shed pollen.");
November 11, 1859 ("The flat variety of Lycopodium dendroideum shed pollen on the 25th of October.");
November 15, 1858 ("The Lycopodium dendroideum var. obscurum appears to be just in bloom in the swamp about the Hemlocks (the regular one (not variety) is apparently earlier).")
November 16, 1850 (“The partridge-berry leaves checker the ground on the side of moist hillsides in the woods. Are they not properly called checker-berries ?”)
November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”)
November 17, 1858 ("Ascending a little knoll covered with sweet-fern, shortly after, the sun appearing but a point above the sweet-fern, its light was reflected from a dense mass of the bare downy twigs of this plant in a surprising manner")
November 17, 1858 ("It would seem that these lycopodiums, at least, which have their habitat on the forest floor and but lately attracted my attention there (since the withered leaves fell around them and revealed them by the contrast of their color and they emerged from obscurity), —it would seem that they at the same time attained to their prime, their flowering season.")
November 17, 1858 ("Lycopodium dendroideum . . .was apparently in its prime yesterday)
November 19, 1850 ("Now that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen, it begins to appear what is evergreen the partridge-berry and checkerberry, and winter-green leaves even, are more conspicuous.”)
November 20, 1853 ("As I passed through Boston I went to Quincy Market and inquired the price of cranberries")
November 21, 1852 ("I am surprised this afternoon to find . . .Fair Haven Pond one-third frozen or skimmed over”)
November 23, 1852("I am surprised to see Fair Haven entirely skimmed over”)
November 5, 1857 ("The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green.”)
November 7, 1858 ("I see Lycopodium dendroideum which has not yet shed pollen.");
November 11, 1859 ("The flat variety of Lycopodium dendroideum shed pollen on the 25th of October.");
November 15, 1858 ("The Lycopodium dendroideum var. obscurum appears to be just in bloom in the swamp about the Hemlocks (the regular one (not variety) is apparently earlier).")
November 16, 1850 (“The partridge-berry leaves checker the ground on the side of moist hillsides in the woods. Are they not properly called checker-berries ?”)
November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”)
November 17, 1858 ("Ascending a little knoll covered with sweet-fern, shortly after, the sun appearing but a point above the sweet-fern, its light was reflected from a dense mass of the bare downy twigs of this plant in a surprising manner")
November 17, 1858 ("It would seem that these lycopodiums, at least, which have their habitat on the forest floor and but lately attracted my attention there (since the withered leaves fell around them and revealed them by the contrast of their color and they emerged from obscurity), —it would seem that they at the same time attained to their prime, their flowering season.")
November 17, 1858 ("Lycopodium dendroideum . . .was apparently in its prime yesterday)
November 19, 1850 ("Now that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen, it begins to appear what is evergreen the partridge-berry and checkerberry, and winter-green leaves even, are more conspicuous.”)
November 20, 1853 ("As I passed through Boston I went to Quincy Market and inquired the price of cranberries")
November 21, 1852 ("I am surprised this afternoon to find . . .Fair Haven Pond one-third frozen or skimmed over”)
November 23, 1852("I am surprised to see Fair Haven entirely skimmed over”)
November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse, etc., etc.")
November 25, 1859 (" For some days since colder weather, I notice the snow-fleas skipping on the surface the shore. I see them today skipping by thousands in the wet clamshells left by the muskrats. These are rather a cool-weather phenomenon")
November 27, 1853 ("Checkerberries and partridge-berries are both numerous and obvious now")
November 27, 1853 ("I observe the Lycopodium lucidulum still of .a fresh, shining green.")
November 27, 1859 ("This wood-lot, especially at the northwest base of the hill, is extensively carpeted with the Lycopodium complanatum and also much dendroideum.")
November 27, 1859 ("Chimaphila umbellata. [also called pipsissewa, or “wintergreen.”]")
November 27, 1856 ("A painted tortoise sinking to the bottom")
November 25, 1859 (" For some days since colder weather, I notice the snow-fleas skipping on the surface the shore. I see them today skipping by thousands in the wet clamshells left by the muskrats. These are rather a cool-weather phenomenon")
November 27, 1853 ("Checkerberries and partridge-berries are both numerous and obvious now")
November 27, 1853 ("I observe the Lycopodium lucidulum still of .a fresh, shining green.")
November 27, 1859 ("This wood-lot, especially at the northwest base of the hill, is extensively carpeted with the Lycopodium complanatum and also much dendroideum.")
November 27, 1859 ("Chimaphila umbellata. [also called pipsissewa, or “wintergreen.”]")
November 27, 1856 ("A painted tortoise sinking to the bottom")
December 2, 1857 ("Measuring Little Goose Pond, I observed two painted tortoises moving about under the thin transparent ice.")
December 3, 1853 ("The still green Mitchella repens and checkerberry in shelter, both with fruit")
December 5, 1856 ("I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold,")
December 5, 1853 ("Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over.")
December 6, 1854 ("I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence, but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture.")
December 8, 1850 ("A week or two ago Fair Haven Pond was frozen and the ground was still bare. Now the Pond is open and ground is covered with snow and ice.")
December 8, 1850 ( "The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!")
December 8, 1850 (”The pennyroyal there also retains its fragrance under the ice and snow.)
December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden.")
December 9, 1856 (" Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it,")
December 10, 1854 (" Snow-fleas in paths; first I have seen. ");
December 11, 1854 ("C. says he found Fair Haven frozen over last Friday, i. e. the 8th.")
December 11, 1855 ("The winter, with its snow and ice, . . . is as it was designed and made to be.")
December 13, 1859 ("My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer. . . . Now that the river is frozen we have a sky under our feet also.")
December 14, 1850 ("I walk on Loring's Pond to three or four islands there which I have never visited, not having a boat in the summer.")
December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but I have had no time to skate for surveying. I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business.")
December 14, 1855 ("In a little hollow I see the sere gray pennyroyal rising above the snow.")
December 15, 1855 ("The boys have skated. a little within two or three days, but it has not been thick enough to bear a man yet.")
December 16, 1850 ("The snow everywhere is covered with snow-fleas like pepper. . . .They look like some powder which the hunter has spilled in the path. ")
December 17, 1850 ("there were handsome spider-shaped dark places, where the under ice had melted, and the water had worn it running through, a handsome figure on the icy carpet.")
December 19, 1854 (" Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before. ")
December 20, 1854 ( P. M. — Skate to Fair Haven.”)
December 20, 1854 ("It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple")
December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail.”)
December 21, 1856 ("How interesting and wholesome their color now! A broad level thick stuff, without a crevice in it, composed of the dull brown-red andromeda. Is it not the most uniform and deepest red that covers a large surface now?")
December 23, 1855 (“At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, . . . checkerberry, wintergreen, . . .”)
December 8, 1850 (”The pennyroyal there also retains its fragrance under the ice and snow.)
December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden.")
December 9, 1856 (" Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it,")
December 10, 1854 (" Snow-fleas in paths; first I have seen. ");
December 11, 1854 ("C. says he found Fair Haven frozen over last Friday, i. e. the 8th.")
December 11, 1855 ("The winter, with its snow and ice, . . . is as it was designed and made to be.")
December 13, 1859 ("My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer. . . . Now that the river is frozen we have a sky under our feet also.")
December 14, 1850 ("I walk on Loring's Pond to three or four islands there which I have never visited, not having a boat in the summer.")
December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but I have had no time to skate for surveying. I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business.")
December 14, 1855 ("In a little hollow I see the sere gray pennyroyal rising above the snow.")
December 15, 1855 ("The boys have skated. a little within two or three days, but it has not been thick enough to bear a man yet.")
December 16, 1850 ("The snow everywhere is covered with snow-fleas like pepper. . . .They look like some powder which the hunter has spilled in the path. ")
December 17, 1850 ("there were handsome spider-shaped dark places, where the under ice had melted, and the water had worn it running through, a handsome figure on the icy carpet.")
December 19, 1854 (" Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before. ")
December 20, 1854 ( P. M. — Skate to Fair Haven.”)
December 20, 1854 ("It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple")
December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail.”)
December 21, 1856 ("How interesting and wholesome their color now! A broad level thick stuff, without a crevice in it, composed of the dull brown-red andromeda. Is it not the most uniform and deepest red that covers a large surface now?")
December 23, 1855 (“At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, . . . checkerberry, wintergreen, . . .”)
January 14, 1860("Those little groves of sweet-fern still thickly leaved, whose tops now rise above the snow, are an interesting warm brown-red now, . . .a wild and jagged leaf, alternately serrated. A warm reddish color revealed by the snow")
January 23, 1855 ("The radical leaves of the shepherd’s-purse, seen in green circles on the water-washed plowed grounds, remind me of the internal heat and life of the globe, anon to burst forth anew.")
December 7, 2015
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, December 7
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 © 2009-2023
tinyurl.com/HDTDEC7
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