A dense hedge of bright-yellow osiers.

February 10

The thaw which began on the 4th lasted through the 8th. 

When I surveyed Shattuck's Merrick's pasture fields, about January 10th, I was the more pleased with the task because of the three willow-rows about them. One, trimmed a year before, had grown about seven feet, a dense hedge of bright-yellow osiers. But MacManus, who was helping me, said that he thought the land would be worth two hundred dollars more if the willows were out of the way, they so filled the ground with their roots. He had found that you could not plow within five rods of them, unless at right angles with the rows. 

Hayden, senior, tells me that when he lived with Abel Moore, Moore's son Henry one day set out a row of willow boughs for a hedge, but the father, who had just been eradicating an old willow-row at great labor and expense, asked Hayden who had done that and finally offered him a dollar if he would destroy them, which he agreed to do. So each morning, as he went to and from his work, he used to pull some of them up a little way, and if there were many roots formed he rubbed them off on a rock. And when, at the breakfast-table, Henry expressed wonder that his willows did not grow any better, being set in a rich soil, the father would look at Hayden and laugh. 

Burton, the traveller, quotes an Arab saying, "Voyaging is a victory," which he refers to the feeling of independence on overcoming the difficulties and dangers of the desert. But I think that commonly voyaging is a defeat, a rout, to which the traveller is compelled by want of valor. The traveller's peculiar valor is commonly a bill of exchange. He is at home anywhere but where he was born and bred. Petitioning some Sir Joseph Banks or other representative of a Geographical Society to avail himself of his restlessness, and, if not receiving a favorable answer, necessarily going off some where next morning. It is a prevalent disease, which attacks Americans especially, both men and women, the opposite to nostalgia. Yet it does not differ much from nostalgia. I read the story of one voyageress round the world, who, it seemed to me, having started, had no other object but to get home again, only she took the longest way round. Snatching at a fact or two in be half of science as he goes, just as a panther in his leap will take off a man's sleeve and land twenty feet beyond him when travelling down-hill, being fitted out by some Sir Joseph Banks. 

It seems that in Arabia, as well as in New England, they have the art of springing a prayer upon you. The Madani or inhabitants of El Medinah are, according to Burton, notwithstanding an assumed austerity and ceremoniousness, not easily matched in volubility and personal abuse. 

"When a man is opposed to more than his match in disputing or bargaining, ... he interrupts the adversary with a 'Sail' ala Mohammed,' — bless the Prophet. Every good Moslem is obliged to obey such requisition by responding, 'Allahumma salli alayh,' — O Allah bless him! But the Madani curtails the phrase to 'A'n,' supposing it to be an equivalent, and proceeds in his loquacity. Then perhaps the baffled opponent will shout out 'Wahhid,' i. e. 'Attest the unity of the Deity;' when, instead of employing the usual religious phrases to assert that dogma, he will briefly ejaculate, 'Al,' and hurry on with the course of conversation." (Page 283.)

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 10, 1857

When I surveyed Shattuck's Merrick's pasture fields, about January 10th. See January 16, 1857 ("When I was surveying Shattuck's Merrick's pasture fields the other day")

A dense hedge of bright-yellow osiers. See January 26, 1859 ("When I came down to the river and looked off to Merrick’s pasture, the osiers there shone as brightly as in spring,") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Osier in Winter and early Spring

February 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 10

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 © 2009-2026

My diffuse and vaporous life now concentrated and radiant as frost in a winter morning.

February 8

Debauched and worn-out senses require the violent vibrations of an instrument to excite them, but sound and still youthful senses, not enervated by luxury, hear music in the wind and rain and running water. One would think from reading the critics that music was intermittent as a spring in the desert, dependent on some Paganini or Mozart, or heard only when the Pierians or Euterpeans drive through the villages; but 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. 

For two nights past it has not frozen, but a thick mist has overhung the earth, and you awake to the unusual and agreeable sight of water in the streets. Several strata of snow have been washed away from the drifts, down to that black one formed when dust was blowing from plowed fields. 

Riordan's solitary cock, standing on such an icy snow-heap, feels the influence of the softened air, and the steam from patches of bare ground here and there, and has found his voice again. The warm air has thawed the music in his throat, and he crows lustily and unweariedly, his voice rising to the last. 

Yesterday morning our feline Thomas, also feeling the springlike influence, stole away along the fences and walls, which raise him above the water, and only returned this morning reeking with wet. Having got his breakfast, he already stands on his hind legs, looking wishfully through the window, and, the door being opened a little, he is at once off again in spite of the rain. 

Again and again I congratulate myself on my so-called poverty. I was almost disappointed yesterday to find thirty dollars in my desk which I did not know that I possessed, though now I should be sorry to lose it. 

The week that I go away to lecture, however much I may get for it, is unspeakably cheapened. The preceding and succeeding days are a mere sloping down and up from it. In the society of many men, or in the midst of what is called success, I find my life of no account, and my spirits rapidly fall. I would rather be the barrenest pasture lying fallow than cursed with the compliments of kings, than be the sulphurous and accursed desert where Babylon once stood. 

But when I have only a rustling oak leaf, or the faint metallic cheep of a tree sparrow, for variety in my winter walk, my life be comes continent and sweet as the kernel of a nut. I would rather hear a single shrub oak leaf at the end of a wintry glade rustle of its own accord at my approach, than receive a shipload of stars and garters from the strange kings and peoples of the earth. 

By poverty, i. e. simplicity of life and fewness of incidents, I am solidified and crystallized, as a vapor or liquid by cold. It is a singular concentration of strength and energy and flavor. 

Chastity is perpetual acquaintance with the All. 

February 8, 2020

My diffuse and vaporous life becomes as the frost leaves and spiculae radiant as gems on the weeds and stubble in a winter morning. 

You think that I am impoverishing myself by withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society. 

By simplicity, commonly called poverty, my life is concentrated and so becomes organized, or a κόσμος , which before was inorganic and lumpish.

The otter must roam about a great deal, for I rarely see fresh tracks in the same neighborhood a second time the same winter, though the old tracks may be apparent all the winter through. I should not wonder if one went up and down the whole length of the river. 

Hayden senior (sixty-eight years old) tells me that he has been at work regularly with his team almost every day this winter, in spite of snow and cold. Even that cold Friday, about a fortnight ago, he did not go to a fire from early morning till night. As the thermometer, even at 12.45 p.m., was at -9°, with a very violent wind from the northwest, this was as bad as an ordinary arctic day. He was hauling logs to a mill, and persevered in making his paths through the drifts, he alone breaking the road. However, he froze his ears that Friday. Says he never knew it so cold as the past month. 

He has a fine elm directly behind his house, divided into many limbs near the ground. It is a question which is the most valuable, this tree or the house. In hot summer days it shades the whole house. He is going to build a shed around it, inclosing the main portion of the trunk. 

P. M. — To Hubbard Bath. 

Another very warm day, I should think warmer than the last. The sun is from time to time promising to show itself through the mist, but does not. A thick steam is everywhere rising from the earth and snow, and apparently this makes the clouds which conceal the sun, the air being so much warmer than the earth. The snow is gone off very rapidly in the night, and much of the earth is bare, and the ground partially thawed. 

It is exciting to walk over the moist, bare pastures, though slumping four or five inches, and see the green mosses again. This vapor from the earth is so thick that I can hardly see a quarter of a mile, and ever and anon it condenses to rain-drops, which are felt on my face. 

The river has risen, and the water is pretty well over the meadows. If this weather holds a day or two longer, the river will break up generally. 

I see one of those great ash-colored puffballs with a tinge of purple, open like a cup, four inches in diameter. The upper surface is (as it were bleached) quite hoary. Though it is but just brought to light from beneath the deep snow, and the last two days have been misty or rainy without sun, it is just as dry and dusty as ever, and the drops of water rest on it, at first undetected, being coated with its dust, looking like unground pearls. 

I brought it home and held it in a basin of water. To my surprise, when held under water it looked like a mass of silver or melted lead, it was so coated with air, and when I suffered it to rise, — for it had to be kept down by force, — instead of being heavy like a sponge which has soaked water, it was as light as a feather, and its surface perfectly dry, and when touched it gave out its dust the same as ever. 

It was impossible to wet. It seems to be encased in a silvery coat of air which is water-tight. The water did not penetrate into it at all, and running off as you lifted it up, it was just as dry as before, and on the least jar floating in dust above your head. 

The ground is so bare that I gathered a few Indian relics. 

And now another friendship is ended. I do not know what has made my friend doubt me, but I know that in love there is no mistake, and that every estrangement is well founded. 

But my destiny is not narrowed, but if possible the broader for it. The heavens withdraw and arch themselves higher. 

I am sensible not only of a moral, but even a grand physical pain, such as gods may feel, about my head and breast, a certain ache and fullness. This rending of a tie, it is not my work nor thine. It is no accident that we mind; it is only the awards of fate that are affecting. I know of no aeons, or periods, no life and death, but these meetings and separations. 

My life is like a stream that is suddenly dammed and has no outlet; but it rises the higher up the hills that shut it in, and will become a deep and silent lake.

Certainly there is no event comparable for grandeur with the eternal separation — if we may conceive it so — from a being that we have known. I become in a degree sensible of the meaning of finite and infinite. What a grand significance the word "never" acquires! 

With one with whom we have walked on high ground we cannot deal on any lower ground ever after. We have tried for so many years to put each other to this immortal use, and have failed.

Undoubtedly our good genii have mutually found the material unsuitable. We have hitherto paid each other the highest possible compliment; we have recognized each other constantly as divine, have afforded each other that opportunity to live that no other wealth or kindness can afford. And now, for some reason inappreciable by us, it has become necessary for us to withhold this mutual aid.

Perchance there is none beside who knows us for a god, and none whom we know for such. Each man and woman is a veritable god or goddess, but to the mass of their fellows disguised. There is only one in each case who sees through the disguise. That one who does not stand so near to any man as to see the divinity in him is truly alone. 

I am perfectly sad at parting from you. I could better have the earth taken away from under my feet, than the thought of you from my mind. 

One while I think that some great injury has been done, with which you are implicated, again that you are no party to it. I fear that there may be incessant tragedies, that one may treat his fellow as a god but receive somewhat less regard from him. I now almost for the first time fear this. Yet I believe that in the long run there is no such inequality. 

Here we are in the backwoods of America repeating Hebrew prayers and psalms in which occur such words as amen and selah, the meaning of some of which we do not quite understand, reminding me of Moslem prayers in which, it seems, the same or similar words are used. How Mormon-like!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 8, 1857

Music in the wind and rain and running water. See February 15, 1855 ("The steady, soaking, rushing sound of the rain on the shingles is musical.")

Music is perpetual, and only hearing is intermittent. See December 11, 1855 ("Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear. ")

The softened air of these warm February days which have broken the back of the winter. See February 8, 1856 ("The snow is soft, and the eaves begin to run as not for many weeks."); February 8, 1854 ("Rain, rain, rain, carrying off the snow and leaving a foundation of ice. "); February 8, 1852 ("Night before last, our first rain for a long time; this afternoon, the first crust to walk on."); February 8, 1860 ("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.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: Change in the Air

 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

  

The otter must roam about a great deal, for I rarely see fresh tracks in the same neighborhood a second time the same winter, though the old tracks may be apparent all the winter through. See March 31, 1857 ("The existence of the otter, our largest wild animal, is not betrayed to any of our senses (or at least not to more than one in a thousand)!") See also  January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him."); January 29. 1853 ("Melvin . . . Never saw an otter track"); January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him,"); February 4, 1855 ("See this afternoon a very distinct otter-track by the Rock, at the junction of the two rivers.”); February 20, 1855 (Among the quadrupeds of Concord, the otter is "very rare.”); February 20, 1856 (“See a broad and distinct otter-trail, made last night or yesterday"); . February 22, 1856 (“Just below this bridge begins an otter track, several days old yet very distinct, which I trace half a mile down the river.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Otter

That cold Friday, about a fortnight ago  See January 23, 1857 ("The coldest day that I remember recording, clear and bright, but very high wind, blowing the snow. ");  February 7, 1857(" Several men I have talked with froze their ears a fortnight ago yesterday, the cold Friday; one who had never frozen his ears before.”)

And now another friendship is ended. See e.g. January 21, 1852 ("I never realized so distinctly as this moment that I am peacefully parting company with the best friend I ever had, by each pursuing his proper path. ");  February 19, 1857 ("A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend." ); February 23, 1857 ('That aching of the breast, the grandest pain that man endures, which no ether can assuage . . .  If the teeth ache they can be pulled. If the heart aches, what then? Shall we pluck it out?");  February 5, 1859 ("When we have experienced many disappointments, such as the loss of friends, the notes of birds cease to affect us as they did")

February 8. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 8

My vaporous life

now radiant as frost in

a winter morning.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, My vaporous life

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-570208

Many of the roads about the town, closed by the snow for more than a month, are just beginning to be open.

February 7. 

Another warm day, the snow fast going off. 

I am surprised to see over Walden Pond, which is covered with puddles, that seething or shimmering in the air which is observed over the fields in a warm day in summer, close over the ice for several feet in height, notwithstanding that the sky is completely overcast. 

The thermometer was at 52° when I came out at 3 p.m. 

The water on the ice is for the most part several inches deep, and trees reflected in it appear as when seen through a mist or smoke, apparently owing to the color of the ice. 

It is so warm that I am obliged to take off my greatcoat and carry it on my arm. 

Now the hollows are full of those greenish pods. 

As I was coming through the woods from Walden to Hayden's, I heard a loud or tumultuous warbling or twittering of birds coming on in the air, much like a flock of red-wings in the spring, and even expected to see them at first, but when they came in sight and passed over my head I saw that they were probably redpolls. They fly rather slowly. 

Hayden the elder tells me that the quails have come to his yard every day for almost a month and are just as tame as chickens. They come about his wood-shed, he supposes to pick up the worms that have dropped out of the wood, and when it storms hard gather together in the corner of the shed. He walks within, say, three or four feet of them without disturbing them. They come out of the woods by the graveyard, and some times they go down toward the river. They will be about his yard the greater part of the day; were there yesterday, though it was so warm, but now probably they can get food enough elsewhere. They go just the same to Poland's, across the road. 

About ten years ago there was a bevy of fifteen that used to come from the same woods, and one day, they being in the barn and scared by the cat, four ran into the hay and died there. The former do not go to the houses further from the woods. 

Thus it seems in severe winters the quails venture out of the woods and join the poultry of the farmer's yard, if it be near the edge of the wood. It is remarkable that this bird, which thus half domesticates itself, should not be found wholly domesticated before this. 

Several men I have talked with froze their ears a fortnight ago yesterday, the cold Friday; one who had never frozen his ears before. 

Many of the roads about the town, which for long distances have been completely closed by the snow for more than a month, are just beginning to be open. The sleighs, etc., which have all this time gone round through the fields, are now trying to make their way through in some places. I do not know when they have been so much obstructed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 7, 1857

It is so warm that I am obliged to take off my greatcoat and carry it on my arm. See February 16, 1856 ("The sun is most pleasantly warm on my cheek; the melting snow shines in the ruts; the cocks crow more than usual in barns; my greatcoat is an incumbrance."); March 20, 1855 ("It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm, beginning in the last of February, we come at last to real summer warmth. At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on.")

Froze their ears a fortnight ago yesterday, the cold Friday [of 1857] . . . See January 23, 1857 ("The coldest day that I remember recording, . . . Ink froze. Had to break the ice in my pail with a hammer.. . .I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day."); see also February 7, 1855 ("The coldest night for a long, long time. People dreaded to go to bed.. . .The cold has stopped the clock.  . . .The old folks still refer to the Cold Friday,. . . But they say this is as cold as that was.")

According to Historic Storms of New England 180 "January 19, 1810, is the date of the famous day known in the annals of New England as "Cold Friday." It was said to have been the severest day experienced here from the first settlement of the country to that time.” See also New England Historical Society, The Cold Friday of 1810 ("What made the Cold Friday so lethal was the sudden, steep drop in temperature that caught people unaware")

In severe winters the quails venture out of the woods and join the poultry of the farmer's yard, if it be near the edge of the wood. See January 17, 1856 ("Henry Shattuck tells me that the quails come almost every day and get some saba beans within two or three rods of his house . . .Probably the deep snow drives them to it. ");  February 6, 1857 ("One who has seen them tells me that a covey of thirteen quails daily visits Hayden's yard and barn, where he feeds them and can almost put his hands on them.")

Speaking of the meadow-hay which is lost this year.

September 30. 

Cattle-Show. 

An overcast, mizzling, and rainy day. 

Minott tells of a General Hull, who lived some where in this county, who, he remembers, called out the whole division once or twice to a muster. He sold the army under him to the English in the last war, — though General Miller of Lincoln besought to let him lead them, — and never was happy after it, had no peace of mind. It was said that his life was in danger here in consequence of his treason. 

Once, at a muster in front of the Hayden house, when there was a sham fight, and an Indian party took a circuit round a piece of wood, some put green grapes into their guns, and he, hearing one whistle by his head, thought some one wished to shoot him and ordered them to disperse, — dismissed them. 

Speaking of the meadow-hay which is lost this year, Minott said that the little they had got since the last flood before this was good for nothing, would only poison the cattle, being covered with the dried slime and filth of the freshet. When you mowed it there arose a great dust. He spoke of this grass, thus left over winter to next year, as "old fog." 

Said that Clark (Daniel or Brooks) asked him the other day what made so many young alders and birches and willows spring up in the river meadows of late years; it didn't use to be so forty or fifty years ago; and he told him that in old times, when they were accustomed to take something strong to drink, they didn't stand for such shrubs but mowed all clear as they went, but now, not feeling so much energy for want of the stimulant, when they came to a bush, though no bigger than a pipe-stem, they mowed all round it and left it standing.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 30, 1856

Minott tells of a General Hull, who lived some where in this county.... William Hull ( 1753-1825) moved to his wife's family estate in Newton after the Revolution and served as a judge and state senator until Jefferson appointed him Governor of the Michigan where he surrendered Fort Detroit to the British on August 16, 1812.

Speaking of the meadow-hay which is lost this year . . . See  September 25, 1856 ("The river has risen again considerably (this I believe the fourth time) . . .before the farmers have succeeded in their late attempt to get their meadow-hay ."); August 22, 1856 (“I see much hay floating, and two or three cocks, quite black, carried round and round in a great eddy by the side of the stream,"); August 1, 1856 (“Unfortunate those who have not got their hay. I see them wading in overflowed meadows and pitching the black and mouldy swaths about in vain that they may dry.")

What made so many young alders and birches and willows spring up in the river meadows of late years . . . See August 25,1856 ("Why do maples, alders, etc., at present border the stream, though they do not spring up to any extent in the open meadow?"); August 3, 1856 ("In a meadow now being mown I see that the ferns and small osiers are as thick as the grass. If modern farmers do not collect elm and other leaves for their cattle, they do thus mow and cure the willows, etc., etc., to a considerable extent, so that they come to large bushes or trees only on the edge of the meadow.")

The advantage of going abroad

September 21 

September 21, 2015

P. M. — To Cliffs. 

Asclepias Cornuti discounting. The seeded parachutes which I release soon come to earth, but probably if they waited for a stronger wind to release them they would be carried far. 

Solidago nemoralis mostly done. 

Aster undulatus in prime, in the dry woods just beyond Hayden's, large slanting, pyramidal panicles of some lilac-tinged, others quite white, flowers, size of Diplopappus linariifolius. 

Solidago altissima past prime. 

Prinos berries. 

I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year. 

A. dumosus past prime. 

Am surprised to see on top of Cliffs, where Wheeler burned in the spring and had cut rye, by a large rock, some very large perfectly fresh Corydalis glauca, still well in bloom as well as gone to seed, two and a half feet high and five eighths of an inch thick at base. There are also many large tufts of its glaucous leaves on the black burnt ground which have not come to flower, amid the rye stubble. The bumblebees are sucking its flowers. 

Beside the young oak and the sprouts, poke-weed, erechthites, and this corydalis even are common there. How far is this due to the fire, aside from the clearing? 

Was not the fireweed seed sown by the wind last fall, blown into the woods, where there was a lull which caused it to settle? Perhaps it is fitted to escape or resist fire. The wind which the fire creates may, perchance, lift it again out of harm's way.

The Asclepias obtusifolia is turned yellow. I see its often perfectly upright slender pod five inches long. It soon bursts in my chamber and shows its beautiful straw- colored lining. A fairy-like casket, shaped like a canoe, with its closely packed imbricated brown seeds, with their yet compressed silvery parachutes like finest unsoiled silk in the right position above them, ready to be wafted some dry and breezy day to their destined places. 

On top of Cliff, behind the big stump, a yellow white goldenrod, var. concolor, which Gray refers to Pennsylvania, apparently with the common. That is a great place for white goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees. 

Scare up turtle doves in the stubble. Uva-ursi berries quite ripe. 

Find, for first time in Concord, Solanum nigrum, berries apparently just ripe, by a rock northwest of corydalis. Thus I have within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable [you] to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange. 

It is a warm and very hazy day, with wreaths of mist in horizon.

See, in the cow-killer on railroad, a small mountain-ash naturalized!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1856

Late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery . . . See September 21, 1854 (" Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher."); September 19, 1858 ("Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chewink  (Rufous-sided Towhee)

Within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. See September 10, 1856 ("Descending the steep south end of this hill [Fall Mountain near Bellow Falls], I saw an apparent Corydalis glauca . . .  By the railroad below, the Solanum nigrum, with white flowers but yet green fruit.") See also September 22, 1859 ("The Solanum nigrum, which is rare in Concord, with many flowers and green fruit.")

I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange. See August 6, 1851 ("It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate."). September 19, 1853 ("[the Maine woods]I looked very narrowly at the vegetation as we glided along close to the shore. . . that I might see what was primitive about our Concord River."); September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood . . . prepared for strange things."); November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else.")

tinyurl.com/HDTabroad

Fair Haven Pond, to my surprise, is completely open.

April 13

Sunday. 8 A.M. — Up railroad. 

Cold, and froze in the night. 

The sallow will not open till some time to-day. 

I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing, the rhythm somewhat like, char char (or here here), che che, chip chip chip (fast), chitter chitter chitter chit (very fast and jingling), tchea tchea (jinglingly). It has another strain, considerably different, but a second also sings the above. Two on different posts are steadily singing the same, as if contending with each other, notwithstanding the cold wind. 

P. M. — To Walden and Fair Haven Ponds. 

Still cold and windy. 

The early gooseberry leaf-buds in garden have burst, -- now like small green frilled horns. 

Also the amelanchier flower-buds are bursting. 

As I go down the railroad causeway, I see a flock of eight or ten bay-wing sparrows flitting along the fence and alighting on an apple tree. There are many robins about also. Do they not incline more to fly in flocks a cold and windy day like this? 

The snow ice is now all washed and melted off of Walden, down to the dark-green clear ice, which appears to be seven or eight inches thick and is quite hard still. At a little distance you would mistake it for water; further off still, as from Fair Haven Hill, it is blue as in summer. You can still get on to it from the southerly side, but elsewhere there is a narrow canal, two or three to twelve feet wide, next the shore. It may last four or five days longer, even if the weather is warm. 

As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs, and at Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first. 

Fair Haven Pond, to my surprise, is completely open. It was so entirely frozen over on the 8th that I think the finishing stroke must have been given to it but by last night’s rain. Say then apparently April 13th (?).

Return over the Shrub Oak Plain and the Cliff. 

Still no cowslips nor saxifrage. There were alders out at Well Meadow Head, as large bushes as any. Can they be A. serrulata? Vide leaves by and by. 

Standing on the Cliffs, I see most snow when I look southwest; indeed scarcely a particle in any other direction, far or near, from which and from other observations, I infer that there is most snow now under the northeast sides of the hills, especially in ravines there. 

At the entrance to the Boiling Spring wood, just beyond the orchard (of Hayden), the northeast angle of the wood, there is still a snow-drift as high as the wall, or three and a half feet deep, stretching quite across the road at that height, and the snow reaches six rods down the road. I doubt if there is as much in the road anywhere else in the town. It is quite impassable there still to a horse, as it has been all winter. 

This is the heel of the winter. 

Scare up two turtle doves in the dry stubble in Wheeler’s hill field by the railroad. I saw two together once before this year; probably they have paired.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1856

I hear a bay-wing  on the railroad fence sing. . . . Two on different posts are steadily singing the same. See  April 2, 1858 (”On the side of Fair Haven Hill I go looking for bay wings, . ..At last I see one, which . . . warbles a peculiar long and pleasant strain, . . .and close by I see another, apparently a bay-wing, though I do not see its white in tail, and it utters while sitting the same subdued, rather peculiar strain.”); April 13, 1855 (“See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the bay-wing.” ).  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs. See April 13, 1855 ("The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

At Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first. See April 13, 1859 ("To-day is the awakening of the meadows now partly bare. I hear the stuttering note of probably the Rana halecina (see one by shore) come up from all the Great Meadow,"); see also March 31, 1857 ("To-day both croakers and peepers are pretty numerously heard, and I hear one faint stertorous (bullfrog-like ??) sound on the river meadow.";  April 15, 1855 ("That general tut tut tut tut, or snoring, of frogs on the shallow meadow heard first slightly the 5th. There is a very faint er er er now and then mixed with it"); April 16, 1856 ("I hear that same stertorous note of a frog or two as was heard the 13th, apparently from quite across all this flood, and which I have so often observed before. What kind is it?"); May 23, 1856 ("At the same time I hear a low, stertorous, dry, but hard-cored note from some frog in the meadows and along the riverside; often heard in past years but not accounted for. Is it a Rana palustris?") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Leopard Frog (Rana Halecina) in Spring

Fair Haven Pond, to my surprise, is completely open  . . .  See April 4, 1855 (“I am surprised to find Fair Haven Pond not yet fully open. There is a large mass of ice in the eastern bay, which will hardly melt tomorrow”); April 7, 1854 (“Fair Haven is completely open”); March 18, 1853 (“The ice in Fair Haven is more than half melted, and now the woods beyond the pond, reflected in its serene water where there has been opaque ice so long, affect me as they perhaps will not again this year.”); April 4, 1852 (“This pond is now open; only a little ice against the Pleasant Meadow.”);  

Still no cowslips nor saxifrage. . . . See March 27, 1855 ("Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is sheltered from the winds. The already expanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth, it is the most forward herb I have seen"); April 13, 1854 ("The saxifrage is pretty common, ahead of the crowfoot now, and its peduncles have shot up.')

Two ducks on open water.

March 12

6.30 A. M. — To Andromeda Ponds. 

Lesser redpolls still. Elbridge Hayden saw a bluebird yesterday. 

P. M. — To Great Meadows. 

Comes out pleasant after a raw forenoon with a flurry of snow, already gone.

Two ducks in river, good size, white beneath with black heads, as they go over.  They first rise some distance down-stream, and fly by on high, reconnoitering me, and I first see them on wing; then settle a quarter of a mile above by a long slanting flight, at last opposite the swimming-elm below Flint’s. 

I come on up the bank with the sun in my face; start them again. Again they fly down-stream by me on high, turn and come round back by me again with outstretched heads, and go up to the Battle-Ground before they alight. 

Thus the river is no sooner fairly open than they are back again, — before I have got my boat launched, and long before the river has worn through Fair Haven Pond. 

I think I hear a quack or two. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 12, 1855

Lesser redpolls still. See  March 17, 1855 (" I hear the lesser redpolls yet. [the last]"): See also March 6, 1860 ("The linarias have been the most numerous birds the past winter."); March 10, 1856 ("Probably the woods have been so generally buried by the snow this winter that they [tree sparrows] have migrated further south.* There has not been one in the yard the past winter, nor a redpoll. I saw perhaps one redpoll in the town; that is all."); March 20, 1853 ("The redpolls are still numerous.'"); March 23, 1853 ("The birds which are merely migrating or tarrying here for a season are especially gregarious now, — the redpoll, Fringilla hyemalis, fox-colored sparrow, etc.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

Two ducks in river, good size, white beneath with black heads, as they go over. See March 12, 1859 ("See two ducks flying over Ministerial Swamp."); March 16, 1855 (“[S]care up two large ducks just above the bridge. . . . I think it the goosander or sheldrake.”); March 17, 1860 ("I see a large flock of sheldrakes, which have probably risen from the pond, flying with great force and rapidity over my head in the woods. Now I hear the whistling of their wings, and in a moment they are lost in the horizon. Like swift propellers of the air.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake

They are back again, — before I have got my boat launched, and long before the river has worn through Fair Haven Pond. See  March 19, 1855 ("Launch my boat..Paddle to Fair Haven Pond.");  March 22, 1855 ("I cross Fair Haven Pond, including the river, on the ice, and probably can for three or four days yet.");  March 24, 1855 ("I crossed Fair Haven Pond yesterday, and could have crossed the channel there again."); March 26, 1860 (""Fair Haven Pond may be open by the 20th of March, as this year [1860], or not till April 13 as in '56, or twenty-three days later. ); March 31, 1855 ("Looking from the Cliffs I see that  Fair Haven Pond will open by day after to-morrow.");  April 4, 1855 ("I am surprised to find Fair Haven Pond not yet fully open. There is a large mass of ice in the eastern bay, which will hardly melt to morrow"); April 7, 1856 (""Launched my boat, through three rods of ice on the riverside, half of which froze last night.. . .  Surprised to find the river not broken up . . .. and as far as we can see, probably through Fair Haven Pond. .  . Yet we make our way with some difficulty, through a very narrow channel over the meadow and drawing our boat over the ice on the river, as far as foot of Fair Haven") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out. and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

First open water –

two ducks on river before 

I have launched my boat.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Two ducks on open water.

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550312

The first wave of summer from the south..

May 7

4.30 A.M. -To Cliffs.  Heard a robin singing powerfully an hour ago, and song sparrows, and the cocks. Beginning, I may say, with robins, song sparrows, chip-birds, bluebirds, etc., I walk through larks, pewees, pigeon woodpeckers, chickadees, towhees, huckleberry-birds, wood thrushes, brown thrasher, jay, catbird, etc., etc. Enter a cool stratum of air beyond Hayden’s. Hear the first partridge drum. 

The first oven-bird. 

There appear to be one or more little warblers in the woods this morning which are new to the season, about which I am in doubt, myrtlebirds among them. For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather. The first wave of summer from the south.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal  May 7, 1852

The first oven-bird. See May 7, 1853 ("The woods now begin to ring with the woodland note of the oven-bird.") See also May 1, 1852 (" I think I heard an oven-bird just now, - wicher wicher whicher wich."); May 4, 1855 ("In cut woods a small thrush, with crown inclining to rufous, tail foxy, and edges of wings dark-ash; clear white beneath. I think the golden-crowned?");   May 16, 1858 ("A golden-crowned thrush hops quite near. It is quite small, about the size of the creeper, with the upper part of its breast thickly and distinctly pencilled with black, a tawny head; and utters now only a sharp cluck for a chip."); June 7, 1853 ("The oven-bird runs from her covered nest, so close to the ground under the lowest twigs and leaves, even the loose leaves on the ground, like a mouse, that I can not get a fair view of her. She does not fly at all. Is it to attract me, or partly to protect herself ?  "); June 19, 1858 (" See an oven-bird's nest with two eggs and one young one just hatched. The bird flits out low, and is, I think, the same kind that I saw flit along the ground and trail her wings to lead me off day before yesterday") July 3, 1853  ("The oven-bird's nest in Laurel Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood, under a fallen pine twig and a heap of dry oak leaves. Within these, on the ground, is the nest, with a dome-like top and an arched entrance of the whole height and width on one side. Lined within with dry pine-needles"). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird

Warblers in the woods this morning which are new to the season . . . See May 28, 1855 ("I have seen within three or four days two or three new warblers “); May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”)

Sunset, new moon.

January 24.

P. M. - Down the Flint's Pond road and return across.

Where the mountains in the horizon are well wooded and the snow does not lodge, they still look blue. 

All but a narrow segment of the sky in the northwest and southeast being suddenly overcast by a passing kind of snow-squall, though no snow falls, I look into the clear sky with its floating clouds in the northwest as from night into day, now at 4 P.M. The sun sets about five.

Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown.

When I come out on to the causeway, I behold a splendid picture in the west. A single elm by Hayden's stands in relief against the amber and golden, deepening into dusky but soon to be red horizon.

January 24, 2026, 5:18 PM

And now the crescent of the moon is seen, and her attendant star is farther off than last night.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 24, 1852

The sun sets about five. See January 20, 1852 ("The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was."); January 23, 1854 ("The increased length of the days is very observable of late"); January 25, 1853 ("There is something springlike in this afternoon . . . The earth and sun appear to have approached some degrees."); January 25, 1855 ("For a week or two the days have been sensibly longer, and it is quite light now when the five-o’clock train comes in "); February 9, 1851 ("It is midwinter. Within a few days the cold has set in stronger than ever, though the days are much longer now") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; The Days have grown Sensibly Longer

Greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown. See January 27, 1854 ("Walden ice has a green tint close by, but is distinguished by its blueness at a distance") and Walden (" Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue, and you can easily tell it from the white ice of the river, or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, a quarter of a mile off. Sometimes one of those great cakes slips from the ice-man's sled into the village street, and lies there for a week like a great emerald, an object of interest to all passers.);  December 14. 1851 ("There is a beautifully pure greenish-blue sky under the clouds now in the southwest just before sunset."); January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset.") December 11, 1854 ("That peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.”) December 20, 1854 ("The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown, . . .") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

And now the crescent of the moon is seen, and her attendant star is farther off than last night. See January 23, 1852 ("And the new moon and the evening star, close together, preside over the twilight scene. "); December 23, 1851 (“I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red, . . . and I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.”); see also October 28, 1852 ("That star which accompanies the moon will not be her companion tomorrow.” ) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

From night into day

I look into the clear sky

with its floating clouds.

Greenish blue patches

of winter sky seen in the

west before sundown.

And now the crescent

of the moon – and farther off –

her attendant star.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Sunset, new moon.

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 © 2009-2025

Jan. 24. If thou art a writer, write as if thy time were short, for it is indeed short at the longest. Improve each occasion when thy soul is reached. Drain the cup of inspiration to its last dregs. Fear no intemperance in that, for the years will come when otherwise thou wilt regret opportunities unimproved. The spring will not last forever. These fertile and expanding seasons of thy life, when the rain reaches thy root, when thy vigor shoots, when thy flower is budding, shall be fewer and farther between. 

Again I say, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Use and commit to life what you cannot commit to memory. 

I hear the tones of my sister's piano below. It reminds me of strains which once I heard more frequently, when, possessed with the inaudible rhythm, I sought my chamber in the cold and commụned with my own thoughts. 

I feel as if I then received the gifts of the gods with too much indifference. Why did I not cultivate those fields they introduced me to? Does nothing withstand the inevitable march of time? Why did I not use my eyes when I stood on Pisgah? 

Now I hear those strains but seldom. My rhythmical mood does not endure. I cannot draw from it and return to it in my thought as to a well all the evening or the morning. I cannot dip my pen in it. I cannot work the vein, it is so fine and volatile. 

Ah, sweet, ineffable reminiscences!

 In thy journal let there never be a jest! To the earnest there is nothing ludicrous.

 P. M. Down the Flint's Pond road and return across . 

Where the mountains in the horizon are well wooded and the snow does not lodge , they still look blue . All but a narrow segment of the sky in the northwest and southeast being suddenly overcast by a passing kind of snow - squall , though no snow falls , 

I look into the clear sky with its floating clouds in the northwest as from night into day , now at 4 P. M. 

The sun sets about five . 

Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown. 

Even the dry leaves are gregarious, and they collect in little heaps in the hollows in the snow or even on the plane surfaces , driven in flocks by the wind . How like shrinking maidens wrapping their scarfs about them they flutter along ! The oaks are made thus to retain their leaves , that they may play over the snow - crust and add variety to the winter landscape . If you wished to collect leaves , you would only have to make holes in the snow for traps . I see that my tracks are often filled two feet deep with them . They are blown quite across Walden on the wavy snow . Two flitting along together by fits and starts , now one running ahead , then another , remind me of squirrels . Mostly white oak leaves , but the other oaks , i . e . especially red oaks , also . 

There is a certain refinement or cultivation, even feminineness, suggested by the rounded lobes, the scalloped edge, of the white oak leaf, compared with the wild, brusque points of the red and black and scarlet and shrub oaks. 

Now I see a faint bluish tinge in the ruts, but it is warmer and there is a snow - bearing cloud over all . When the cars passed, I being on the pond ( Walden ), the sun was setting and suffusing the clouds far and near with rosy light. Even the steam from the engine, as its flocks or wreaths rose above the shadow of the woods, became a rosy cloud even fairer than the rest, but it was soon dissipated. 

I see in the woods the woodman's embers, which have melted a circular hole in the snow, where he warms his coffee at noon. But these days the fire does not melt the snow over a space three feet across. 

These woods! Why do I not feel their being cut more sorely? Does it not affect me nearly ? The axe can deprive me of much. Concord is sheared of its pride. I am certainly the less attached to my native town in consequence. One, and a main, link is broken. I shall go to Walden less frequently. 

When the telegraph harp trembles and wavers , I am most affected , as if it were approaching to articulation . It sports so with my heart - strings . When the harp dies away a little , then I revive for it . It cannot be too faint . I almost envy the Irish , whose shanty in the Cut is so near , that they can hear this music daily standing at their door . 

How strange to think that a sound so soothing, elevating, educating, telling of Greece and the Muses , might have been heard sweep ing other strings when only the red man ranged these fields ! might , perchance , in course of time have civilized him ! If an Indian brave will not fear torture and aids his enemies to torment him , what become of pity and a hundred other Christian virtues ? The charitable are suddenly without employment . 

When I come out on to the causeway , I behold a splendid picture in the west . The damask - lined clouds , like rifts from a coal mine , which sparkle beneath , seen diving into the west . When clouds rise in mid afternoon , you cannot foresee what sunset picture they are preparing for us . A single elm by Hayden's is relieved against the amber and golden border , deepening into dusky but soon to be red , in the horizon . 

And now the crescent of the moon is seen, and her attendant star is farther off than last night .

Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. See Ecclesiastes 12:1 (KJV)("Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.")

Why did I not use my eyes when I stood on Pisgah? See Deuteronomy 34:1–4 (“I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”)