A year is made up of
a certain series and number
of sensations and thoughts
which have their language in nature.
Henry Thoreau, June 6, 1857
November 22, 2022
November
November
whose name sounds
so bleak and cheerless.
Perhaps its harvest of thought
is worth more than
all the other crops of the year.
November 11, 1858
Now is there nothing
Now is there nothing
but the echo of your steps
over frozen ground.
In this cold weather
your deep inward fires burn
with a clearer flame.
November 13, 1851
The willow twigs
The willow twigs right
of the Red Bridge causeway
are bright greenish-
yellow and reddish
as in the spring.
November 14, 1854
Just after sundown
Just after sundown the waters
become suddenly smooth
and the clear yellow light
of the western sky
reflected in the water
making it doubly light
to me on the water
diffusing light from below
as well as above.
November 15, 1853
The pines on shore
Colder weather
very windy
but still no snow.
Ice along the river
does not melt.
The waves run high
with white caps
give a pleasant motion
to the boat.
Pines on shore look very cold
reflecting a silvery light.
November 16, 1852
November lights
We are interested at this season
by the manifold ways in which
the light is reflected to us.
Looking toward the sun now
when an hour high,
many small birches between,
the light pleasantly diffused.
Ascending a little knoll
covered with sweet-fern
the sunlight reflected
as from grass and weeds
covered with hoar frost
a perfect halo of light
resting on the knoll
as I move to right or left.
The setting sun reflected from windows
more brightly than any other season.
The hundred silvery lights of November.
A myriad of surfaces now
prepared to reflect the light.
November 17, 1858
Such is November
Much cold slate-colored cloud
bare twigs seen gleaming
toward the light like gossamer,
pure green of pines
whose old leaves have fallen,
reddish or yellowish brown oak leaves
rustling on the hillsides,
pale brown bleaching almost hoary
grass or hay in the fields
akin to the frost which has killed it.
And flakes of clear yellow sunlight
falling on it here and there –
such is November.
November 18, 1857
A cold gray day
A cold gray day
once spitting snow.
Water froze in tubs
last night.
November 19, 1855
Seen when the sun is low
Seen when the sun is low –
the rare wholesome
and permanent beauty
of withered oak leaves
of various hues of brown --
Quaker colors, sober ornaments
beauty that quite satisfies the eye.
The richness and variety same as before –
the colors different, incorruptible and lasting.
Fair Haven Pond
I see Fair Haven Pond
with its island and meadow
between the island
and the shore and a
strip of perfectly still
and smooth water in the
lee of the island
and two hawks
fish hawks perhaps
sailing over it.
I do not see how
it could be improved –
or yet what these things can be.
I begin to see
such an object when I
cease to understand it.
and I see that I
did not appreciate or
realize it before –
how adapted these
forms and colors to my eye!
meadow and island!
Nature so reserved!
the hawks and ducks so aloof!
What are these things?
I get no further than this:
we are made to love
pond and meadow as the wind
to ripple water.
November 21, 1850
November's bare bleak
inaccessible beauty
seen through a clear air.
A very beautiful November day -
a cool but clear, crystalline air.
I rejoice in the bare, bleak,
hard, and barren-looking
surface of the tawny pastures,
the firm outline of the hills,
and the air so bracing
and wholesome.
Simply to see to a distant
horizon through a clear air, –
this is wealth enough for one afternoon.
It is glorious November weather
and only November fruits are out.
November 22, 2017
The new-fallen snow
This morning is white –
the beauty and purity
of new-fallen snow.
The new-fallen snow
seen lying just as it fell
on the twigs and leaves.
With the first snowfall
Nature seems to relent her
November harshness.
Snow sugars the ground
to reveal a cow-path in
the distant landscape.
November 24, 1858
Amber light in the west
A clear amber light in the west
and, turning about,
we are surprised
at the darkness in the east –
a crescent of night
as if a thick snow-storm gathering
that we are not prepared for –
yet the air is clear.
November 25, 1851
The unexpected
exhilarating yellow
light of November.
November 25, 2017
The warmth of existence.
The air this afternoon
is indescribably clear and exhilarating
and though the thermometer
would show it to be cold
I think that there is a finer and
purer warmth than in summer –
a warmth hardly sensuous
but rather the satisfaction of existence.
I experience such an interior comfort
as if the thin atmosphere
were the medium of invisible flames
as if the whole landscape
were one great hearthside .
When I get up so high on the side of the Cliff
the sun is setting like an Indian-summer sun.
There is a purple tint in the horizon.
It is warm on the face of the rocks
and I could sit till the sun disappears
to dream there. A a mild sunset
such as is to be attended to.
Just as the sun shines into us
warmly and serenely
our Creator
breathes on us
and re-creates us.
November 25, 1850
The bare, barren earth
cheerless without ice and snow –
but how bright the stars.
Twilight makes so large
a part of the afternoon
these November days.
A regular snow-storm
A very few fine snowflakes
falling for many hours, and now,
by 2 P. M., a regular snow-storm --
fine flakes falling steadily
rapidly whitening all the landscape.
In half an hour the russet earth
is painted white even to the horizon.
Do we know of any other
so silent and sudden a change?
I cannot now walk without
I cannot now walk without
leaving a track behind me.
Glorious yellow sunlight
Cloudy and milder this afternoon
but now I begin to see under the clouds
in the west horizon a clear
crescent of yellowish sky
and suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight
falls on all the eastern landscape --
russet fields and hillsides,
evergreens and rustling oaks
and single leafless trees.
The clearness of the air at this season
the light is all from one side
reflected from russet earth and clouds
so intensely bright --
all the limbs of a maple
far eastward rising over a hill
wonderfully distinct and lit.
I think that we have some such sunsets
peculiar to the season every year.
I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.
November 29, 1853
Wholesome colors
Again I am struck
by the wholesome colors of
the withered oak leaves --
the clear reddish-brown
of the shrub oak, contrasting
whitish undersides
so strong and cheerful
as if it rejoiced at the
advent of winter
and exclaimed
“Winter, come on!”
November 29, 1857
Sparkling windows and
vanes of the village now seen
against the mountains.
November 30, 1852
Recognition from white pines
A cold and windy
afternoon with snow not yet
melted on the ground.
My eye wanders as
I sit on an oak stump by
an old cellar hole.
Methinks that in my
mood I am asking Nature
to give me a sign.
Transient gladness.
I do not know what it is –
something that I see.
This recognition
from white pines now reflecting
a silvery light.
And by the old site
I sit on the stump of an
oak which once grew here.
November 30, 2015
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
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Days
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
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-novdays
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