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
With infinite and
unwearied expectation
usher in each dawn.
Ducks on the meadow
leave a long furrow in the
water behind them.
They dive and come up --
first I see but one then a
minute after -- three.
Red maple sap spilled
on the ice of the river
will flow to the sea.
The earth has cast off
her white coat and come forth in
her early spring dress.
A flock of red-wings
how handsome as they go by --
bright-scarlet shoulders.
March 16, 2015
Another fine morning . . . I see ducks afar, sailing on the meadow, leaving a long furrow in the water behind them. Watch them at leisure without scaring them, with my glass; observe their free and undisturbed motions . . . Others with bright white breasts, etc., and black heads . . They dive and are gone some time, and come up a rod off. At first I saw but one, then, a minute after, three . . . The first phoebe near the water is heard . . . It is warm weather. A thunder-storm in the evening. March 16, 1854
Cloudy in the forenoon. Sun comes out and it is rather pleasant in the afternoon . . . Scare up two large ducks just above the bridge. One very large; white beneath, breast and neck; black head and wings and aft. The other much smaller and dark. Apparently male and female. They alight more than a hundred rods south of the bridge, and I view them with glass. The larger sails about on the watch, while the smaller, dark one dives repeatedly. I think it the goosander or sheldrake. March 16, 1855
2 P. M. — The red maple sap is now about an inch deep in a quart pail, nearly all caught since morning . . . Going home, slip on the ice, throwing the pail over my head to save myself, and spill all but a pint. So it is lost on the ice of the river. When the river breaks up, it will go down the Concord into the Merrimack, and down the Merrimack into the sea. March 16, 1856
To Cambridge and Boston. March 16, 1857
To Conantum. A thick mist, spiriting away the snow. Very bad walking. This fog is one of the first decidedly spring signs; also the withered grass bedewed by it and wetting my feet. A still, foggy, and rather warm day . . . The crowing of cocks and the cawing of crows tell the same story. The ice is soggy and dangerous to be walked on. March 16, 1858
Launch my boat and sail to Ball's Hill. It is fine clear weather and a strong northwest wind. What a change since yesterday! Last night I came home through as incessant heavy rain as I have been out in for many years, through the muddiest and wettest of streets, still partly covered with ice. . . But to-day. . . A new phase of the spring is presented; a new season has come. . . .
The earth has cast off her white coat and come forth in her clean-washed sober russet early spring dress. As we look over the lively, tossing blue waves for a mile or more eastward and northward, our eyes fall on these shining russet hills, and Ball's Hill appears in this strong light at the verge of this undulating blue plain, like some glorious newly created island of the spring, just sprung up from the bottom in the midst of the blue waters . . .
Our sail draws so strongly that we cut through the great waves without feeling them. And all around, half a mile or a mile distant, looking over this blue foreground, I see the bare and peculiarly neat, clean-washed, and bright russet hills reflecting the bright light (after the storm of yesterday) from an infinite number of dry blades of withered grass . . .
This sight affects me as if it were visible at this season only. What with the clear air and the blue water and the sight of the pure dry withered leaves, that distant hill affects me as something altogether ethereal. . .
Go out into the sparkling spring air, embark on the flood of melted snow and of rain gathered from all hillsides, with a northwest wind in which you often find it hard to stand up straight, and toss upon a sea of which one half is liquid clay, the other liquid indigo, and look round on an earth dressed in a home spun of pale sheeny brown and leather-color. Such are the blessed and fairy isles we sail to! . . .
This first sight of the bare tawny and russet earth, seen afar, perhaps, over the meadow flood in the spring, affects me as the first glimpse of land, his native land, does the voyager who has not seen it a long time. March 16, 1859
Thermometer 55; wind slight, west by south . . . Here is a flock of red-wings. I heard one yesterday, and I see a female among these. How handsome as they go by in a checker, each with a bright-scarlet shoulder! They are not so very shy, but mute when we come near. They cover the apple trees like a black fruit. March 16, 1860
A severe, blocking-up snow-storm. March 16, 1861
Thermometer 55; wind slight, west by south . . . Here is a flock of red-wings. I heard one yesterday, and I see a female among these. How handsome as they go by in a checker, each with a bright-scarlet shoulder! They are not so very shy, but mute when we come near. They cover the apple trees like a black fruit. March 16, 1860
A severe, blocking-up snow-storm. March 16, 1861
March 16, 22022
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out
A Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,, the American Black Duck
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:
March 16, 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, March 16
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 © 2009-2024
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