Nature never lost a day, nor a moment.
As the planet in its orbit and around its axis, so do the seasons,
so does time, revolve, with a rapidity inconceivable.
In the moment, in the eon, time ever advances with this rapidity.
 April Something reminds me of the song of the robin – rainy days, past springs. Man's moods and thoughts revolve just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s. April 24, 1859 Let the season rule us. Find your eternity in each moment. April 24, 1859 Our moods vary from week to week, with the winds and the temperature and the revolution of the seasons. Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind.  Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. June 6, 1857 When the frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their heads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams then is summer begun. June 8, 1850  July The spring now seems far behind, yet I do not remember the interval. July 2, 1854 We have become accustomed to the summer. It has acquired a certain eternity. July 5, 1852 This rapid revolution of nature, even of nature in me, why should it hurry me? Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then? Late rose now in prime. The memory of roses along the river.  August It is one long acclivity from winter to midsummer and another long declivity from midsummer to winter. The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other.
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Walking on the ice
by the side of the river
I recommence life.
After December all
weather that is not wintry
is springlike.
Between winter and summer there is,
to my mind, an immeasurable interval.
January 24, 1858
Mercury down to 13° below zero.
I say, "Let us sing winter."
What else can we sing,
and our voices be in harmony
with the season?
January 30, 1854
February
Is not January the hardest month to get through?
When you have weathered that,
you get into the gulfstream of winter,
nearer the shores of spring.
February 2, 1854
Though the days are much longer now
the cold sets in stronger than ever.
The rivers and meadows are frozen.
That earth is effectually buried.
It is midwinter.
February 9, 1851
Sunlight thawing snow
strangely excites a springlike
melting in my thoughts.
February 12, 1856
The northerly wind
roaring in the woods to-day
reminds me of March.
February 20, 1855
It is a moderately cool
and pleasant day
near the end of winter.
We have almost completely forgotten summer.
February 27, 1852
March
No mortal is alert enough
to be present at the first dawn of the spring.
Each new year is a surprise to us.
We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird,
and when we hear it again it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence.
March 18, 1858
Distant mountaintop
as blue to the memory
as now to the eyes.
March 31, 1853
*****
All these times and places
and occasions
are now and here.
God Himself culminates
in the present moment.
See also
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, There was an artist in the City of Kouroo
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A body awake in the world.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons Revolve
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
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