Each season is but an infinitesimal point.
It no sooner comes than it is gone.
It has no duration …
Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting
Henry Thoreau, June 6, 1857
There is that time about the first of June,
the beginning of summer,
when the buttercups blossom in the now luxuriant grass
and I am first reminded of mowing and of the dairy.
June, 1850
They say of the 19th of April, '75, that
"the apple trees were in bloom and grass was waving in the fields"
May 19, 1860
To be present with
these virgin shades of the year –
the birth of shadow.
June 2, 1854
*****
April 25. It is a sudden impression of greater genialness in the air, when this greenness first makes an impression on you . . . It reminds you of the time, not far off, when you will see the dark shadows of the trees there and buttercups spotting the grass. Even the grass begins to wave, in the 19th-of-April fashion . . . and I am suddenly advertised that a new season has arrived . . . that season which, methinks, culminates with the buttercup and wild pink. April 25, 1859
May 14. The dark bluish-green of that rye, already beginning to wave. May 14, 1853
May 15. Yellow is the color of spring; red, of midsummer. Through pale golden and green we arrive at the yellow of the buttercup; through scarlet, to the fiery July red, the red lily. May 15, 1853
May 15. The springing sorrel, the expanding leafets, the already waving rye tell of June. May 15, 1860
May 19. The grass, especially the meadow-grasses, are seen to wave distinctly, and the shadows of the bright fair-weather cumuli are sweeping over them. May 19, 1860
May 21. Noticed the shadows of apple trees yesterday. May 21, 1860
May 22. The rye, which, when I last looked, was one foot high, is now three feet high and waving and tossing its heads in the wind . . . I am never prepared for this magical growth of the rye. I am advanced by whole months, as it were, into summer. May 22, 1853
May 23. And buttercups and silvery cinquefoil, and the first apple blossoms, and waving grass beginning to be tinged with sorrel, introduce us to a different season . . . I am surprised by the dark orange-yellow of the senecio. At first we had the lighter, paler spring yellows of willows, dandelion, cinquefoil, then the darker and deeper yellow of the buttercup; and then this broad distinction between the buttercup and the senecio, as the seasons revolve toward July. May 23, 1853
May 24. I notice the first shadows of hickories, – not dense and dark shade, but open-latticed, a network of sun and shadow on the north sides of the trees. May 24, 1860
May 26. At sight of this deep and dense field all vibrating with motion and light, winter recedes many degrees in my memory . . . The season of grass, now everywhere green and luxuriant. May 26, 1854
May 27. The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave. May 27, 1855
May 27. A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June. The elms begin to droop and are heavy with shade.. . . The buttercups in the church-yard and on some hillsides are now looking more glossy and bright than ever after the rain. May 27, 1853
May 28. The buttercups spot the churchyard. May 28, 1851
May 28. These various shades of grass remind me of June. May 28, 1858
May 29. The sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. May 29, 1857
May 30. Now is the summer come . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave. May 30, 1852
May 30. Buttercups thickly spot the churchyard. May 30, 1857
May 31. Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days. May 31, 1856
June 2. Buttercups now spot the churchyard. June 2, 1852
June 2. The elms now hold a good deal of shade and look rich and heavy with foliage. You see darkness in them. June 2, 1852
June 2. These virgin shades of the year, when everything is tender, fresh and green, — how full of promise! I would fain be present at the birth of shadow. June 2, 1854
June 3. I observed the grass waving to-day for the first time . . . It might have been noticed before. June 3, 1851
June 4. Dark shadows on field and wood are the more remarkable by contrast with the light yellow-green foliage now, and when they rest on evergreens they are doubly dark, like dark rings about the eyes of June. June 4, 1855
June 4. Most trees now [make]a grateful but thin shade, like a coarse sieve, so open that we see the fluttering of each leaf in its shadow . . . In a week or more the twigs will have so extended themselves, and the number of fully expanded leaves be so increased, that the trees will look heavy and dark with foliage and the shadow be dark and opaque. June 4, 1860
June 5. This while rye begins to wave richly in the fields. June 5, 1856
June 5. The first of June, when the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons. June 5, 1850
June 6. You see the dark eye and shade of June on the river as well as on land, June 6, 1855
June 6. This is June, the month of grass and leaves. June 6, 1857
June 7. The trees having leaved out, you notice their rounded tops, suggesting shade. June 7, 1858
June 8. Not till June can the grass be said to be waving in the fields. 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
June 9. The general leafiness, shadiness, and waving of grass and boughs in the breeze characterize the season. The weather is very clear, and the sky bright. The river shines like silver. June 9, 1852
June 9. The meadows are now yellow with the golden senecio, a more orange yellow, mingled with the light glossy yellow of the buttercup. June 9, 1853
June 9. Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath. It suggests . . . the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer. June 9, 1856
June 10. Streets now beautiful with verdure and shade of elms, under which you look, through an air clear for summer, to the woods in the horizon. June 10, 1853
June 11. I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground . . .It reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer. June 11, 1856
June 11. No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons. A book of the seasons, each page of which should be written in its own season and out-of-doors, or in its own locality wherever it may be. June 11, 1851
*****
June 2, 2018
All nature is a new impression every instant.
See also :
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Apple Blossom Time
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Waving grasses, Buttercups, and Shade
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
https://tinyurl.com/HDTshade
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