Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857
I hear music in
the softened state air of these
warm February days.
February 18, 2017
January 22. Crows . . . are heard cawing in pleasant, thawing winter weather, and their note is then a pulse by which you feel the quality of the air, i.e., when cocks crow. January 22, 1860
February 8. Music is perpetual, and only hearing is intermittent. I hear it in the softened air of these warm February days which have broken the back of the winter. February 8, 1857
February 8. There is a peculiarity in the air when the temperature is thus high and the weather fair, at this season, which makes sounds more clear and pervading, as if they trusted themselves abroad further in this genial state of the air. February 8, 1860
February 9. There is a peculiar softness and luminousness in the air this morning, perhaps the light being diffused by vapor. It is such a warm, moist, or softened, sunlit air as we are wont to hear the first bluebird's warble in. .February 9, 1854
February 10. We have none of those peculiar clear, vitreous, crystalline vistas in the western sky before sundown of late. There is perchance more moisture in the air. February 10, 1852
February 12. A very pleasant and warm afternoon. There is a softening of the air and snow. February 12, 1855
February 12. The eaves run fast on the south side of houses, and, as usual in this state of the air, the cawing of crows at a distance. February 12, 1855
February 16. Sounds sweet and musical through this air, as crows, cocks, and striking on the rails at a distance .February 16, 1855
February 18. Now for the first time decidedly there is something spring-suggesting in the air and light. Though not particularly warm, the light of the sun (now travelling so much higher) on the russet fields, —the ground being nearly all bare, —and on the sand and the pines, is suddenly yellower. It is the earliest day-breaking of the year. February 18, 1855
February 18. I am excited by this wonderful air and go listening for the note of the bluebird or other comer. The very grain of the air seems to have undergone a change and is ready to split into the form of the bluebird's warble. February 18, 1857
February 21. I see the peculiar softened blue sky of spring over the tops of the pines, and, when I am sheltered from the wind, I feel the warmer sun of the season reflected from the withered grass and twigs on the side of this elevated hollow. February 21, 1855
February 22. Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring. I even listen for the first bluebird. I see a seething in the air over clean russet fields. The westerly wind is rather raw, but in sheltered places it is deliciously warm. February 22, 1855
February 23. I have seen signs of the spring. February 23, 1857
February 24. I am reminded of spring by the quality of the air. The cock-crowing and even the telegraph harp prophesy it, even though the ground is for the most part covered by snow. February 24, 1852
February 24. As cross from the causeway to the hill, thinking of the bluebird, I that instant hear one's note from deep in the softened air. It is already 40°, and by noon is between 50° and 60°. February 24, 1857
February 24. Thermometer 42. A very spring-like day, so much sparkling light in the air. February 24, 1860
February 27. The sky, too, is soft to look at, and the air to feel on my cheek. February 27, 1859
March 2. What produces the peculiar softness of the air yesterday and to-day, as if it were the air of the south suddenly pillowed amid our wintry hills? We have suddenly a different sky, — a different atmosphere. March 2, 1854
March 9. . [T]he air excites me. When the frost comes out of the ground, there is a corresponding thawing of the man. March 9, 1852
March 10. This is the first really spring day . . . Something analogous to the thawing of the ice seems to have taken place in the air. At the end of winter there is a season in which are are daily expecting spring, and finally a day when it arrives. March 10, 1853
March 10. I perceive the spring in the softened air. March 10, 1859
March 21. The softness of the air mollifies our own dry and congealed substance . . . We become, as it were, pliant and ductile again to strange but memorable influences . . . winter breaks up within us; the frost is coming out of me, and I am heaved like the road; accumulated masses of ice and snow dissolve, and thoughts like a freshet pour down unwonted channels. March 21, 1853
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: Change in the Air
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
No comments:
Post a Comment