There always appears to be something phosphorescent
in moonlight reflected from water.
Henry Thoreau April 3, 1852
Evening on river.
Fine full moon —
river smooth.
The pale cloud-like moon
spirit-like seen in daylight –
just over the woods.
April 30, 1852
April 3. The moon appears to be full to-night. About 8.30 P. M. I walked to the Clamshell Hill. It is very cold and windy, and I miss my gloves, left at home. Colder than the last moon. The sky is two-thirds covered with great four or more sided downy clouds, drifting from the north or northwest, with dark-blue partitions between them. The moon, with a small brassy halo, seems travelling ever through them toward the north. The water is dull and dark, except close to the windward shore, where there is a smooth strip a rod or more in width protected from the wind, which reflects a faint light. When the moon reaches a clear space, the water is suddenly lit up quite across the meadows, for half a mile in length and several rods in width, while the woods beyond are thrown more into the shade, or seen more in a mass and indistinctly, than before. The ripples on the river, seen in the moonlight, those between the sunken willow lines, have the arc of a circle, as if their extremities were retarded by the friction of the banks. I noticed this afternoon that bank below Cæsar's, now partially flooded, higher than the neighboring meadow, so that sometimes you can walk down on it a mile dry shod with water on both sides of you. Like the banks of the Mississippi. There always appears to be something phosphorescent in moonlight reflected from water. Venus is very bright now in the west, and Orion is there, too, now. I came out mainly to see the light of the moon reflected from the meadowy flood. It is a pathway of light, of sheeny ripples, extending across the meadow toward the moon, consisting of a myriad little bent and broken moons. I hear one faint peep bird on its roost. The clouds are travelling very fast into the south. I would not have believed the heavens could be cleared so soon. They consist of irregularly margined, wide whitish bars, apparently converging, rendezvousing, toward one point far in the south horizon. Like the columns of a host in the sky, each being conducted by its own leader to one rendezvous in the southern heavens. Such is the illusion, for we are deceived when we look up at this concave sphere, as when we look on a plane map representing the convex globe, --not by Mercator's projection. But what a grand incident of the night — though hardly a night passes without many such — that, between the hours of nine and ten, a battalion of downy clouds many miles in length and several in width were observed sailing noiselessly like a fleet from north to south over land and water, town and cottage, at the height of half a dozen miles above the earth! Over woods and over villages they swept along, intercepting the light of the moon, and yet perchance no man observed them. Now they are all gone. The sky is left clear and cold and but thinly peopled at this season. It is of a very light blue in all the horizon, but darker in the zenith, darkest of all in the crevice between two downy clouds. It is particularly light in the western horizon. Who knows but light is reflected from snow lying on the ground further inland? The water, as I look at it in the north or northeast, is a very dark blue, the moon being on my right; afterwards, crossing the railroad bridge, is a deep sea-green. The evenings are now much shortened, suggesting that ours is to be henceforth a daylight life. April 3, 1852
April 11. Evening on river. Fine full moon; river smooth. Hear a slight snoring of frogs on the bared meadows. Is it not the R. palustris? This the first moon to walk by. April 11, 1854
April 12. A white frost this morning, after the clear moonlight. April 12, 1854
April 15. It is a rather warm, moist night, the moon partially obscured by misty clouds, all the village asleep, only a few lights to be seen in some windows, when, as I pass along under the warm hillside, I hear a clear, shrill, prolonged ringing note from a toad, the first toad of the year, sufficiently countenanced by its Maker in the night and the solitude, and then again I hear it (before I am out of hearing, i.e. it is deadened by intervening buildings), on a little higher key. At the same time, I hear a part of the hovering note of my first snipe, circling over some distant meadow, a mere waif, and all is still again. A-lulling the watery meadows, fanning the air like a spirit over some far meadow’s bay. April 15, 1856
April 24. I saw the moon rise last night over great bare hills eastward and it reminded me of Ossian. April 24, 1853
April 30. Dodging behind a swell of land to avoid the men who were plowing, I saw unexpectedly (when I looked to see if we were concealed by the field) the blue mountains' line in the west (the whole intermediate earth and towns being concealed), this greenish field for a foreground sloping upward a few rods, and then those grand mountains seen over it in the background, so blue, — seashore, earth-shore, — and, warm as it is, covered with snow which reflected the sun. Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes. Such a sight excites me. The earth is worthy to inhabit. April 30, 1852
April 30. Dodging behind a swell of land to avoid the men who were plowing, I saw unexpectedly (when I looked to see if we were concealed by the field) the blue mountains' line in the west (the whole intermediate earth and towns being concealed), this greenish field for a foreground sloping upward a few rods, and then those grand mountains seen over it in the background, so blue, — seashore, earth-shore, — and, warm as it is, covered with snow which reflected the sun. Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes. Such a sight excites me. The earth is worthy to inhabit. April 30, 1852
See also:
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April Moonlight
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2023
https://tinyurl.com/HDTaprilmoon
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