A Book of the Seasons: July 27 (walking in the river, sunny waters, asters and goldenrods, the sunset sky )

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

 July 27.

Before the first star 

I turn round – there shines the moon

silvering small clouds.

July 27, 1852

A devil's-needle

keeps its place on my paddle

against a strong wind.

July 27, 1856

Peetweet and turtle

both eyeing me anxiously

not minding each other.

July 27, 1856

The voice of the loon

in the middle of the night

far over the lake.

July 27, 1857 

(The Maine Woods)

Clear sunny water

reveals fishes and minnows

all sizes and colors.

July 27, 1860

July 27, 2014

June and July perhaps only are the months of drought. The drought ceases with the dog-days.  July 27, 1853

Rains, still quite soakingly. July 27, 1853

It has been a clear, cool, breezy day for the season. July 27, 1852

It is pleasing to behold at this season contrasted shade and sunshine on the side of neighboring hills.  Each must enhance the other. July 27, 1852

 On Fair Haven Hill. The slight distraction of picking berries is favorable to a mild, abstracted, poetic mood, to sequestered or transcendental thinking. I return ever more fresh to my mood from such slight interruptions. July 27, 1852

The water has begun to be clear and sunny, revealing the fishes and countless minnows of all sizes and colors, this year's brood. July 27, 1860. 

That the luxury of walking in the river may be perfect it must be very warm, such as are few days even in July . . . Both water and air must be unusually warm; otherwise we shall feel no impulse to cast ourselves into and remain in the stream. July 27, 1852

The autumnal dandelion now appears more abundantly within a week. July 27, 1853

Solidago lanceolata also, a few days probably, though only partially open. July 27, 1853

Aster dumosus  by wood-paths. July 27, 1852

Zizania scarce out some days at least. July 27, 1856

As I paddle by Dodge's Brook, a great devil's-needle alights on my paddle, between my hands. It is about three inches long and three and a half in spread of wings, without spots, black and yellow, with green eyes (?). It keeps its place within a few inches of my eyes, while I was paddle some twenty-five rods against a strong wind, clinging closely. July 27, 1856

I see, on a rock in midstream, a peetweet within a foot of a turtle, both eying me anxiously within two rods, but not minding each other. July 27, 1856

Woodcocks have been common by the streams and springs in woods for some weeks. July 27, 1852

There is only one white bar of cloud in the north. July 27, 1852

The river is silvery, as it were plated and polished smooth, with the slightest possible tinge of gold, tonight. How beautiful the meanders of a river, thus revealed! July 27, 1852

How beautiful hills and vales, the whole surface of the earth a succession of these great cups, falling away from dry or rocky edges to gelid green meadows and water in the midst, where night already is setting in! July 27, 1852

All glow on the clouds is gone, except from one higher, small, rosy pink or flesh-colored isle. The sun is now probably set. July 27, 1852

How cool and assuaging the thrush's note after the fever of the day! July 27, 1852

Have I heard the veery lately? July 27, 1852

The huckleberry-bird as usual, and the nighthawk squeaks and booms, and the bullfrog trumps, just before the earliest star. July 27, 1852

The evening red is much more remarkable than the morning red.  July 27, 1852

The solemnity of the evening sky! July 27, 1852

I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds which have gathered; she makes nothing red. July 27, 1852

In the middle of the night . . . we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances of the traveler, and very unlike the voice of a bird. I could lie awake for hours listening to it, it is so thrilling. The Maine Woods. July 27, 1857

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: 

The Season of Sunny Water

 The world can never be more beautiful than now

The Cricket in July

  the Devil's-needle

 The Field Sparrow 

 the Nighthawk

The American Woodcock

  The Wood Thrush

The Veery

The Luxury of  Bathing

 The Horizon

 July Moonlight

July Moods

*****

June 3, 1850 ("The landscape is a vast amphitheatre rising to its rim in the horizon.")
June 25, 1852 ("The earth appears like a vast saucer sloping upward to its sharp mountain rim.")

July 17, 1853 ("I see two great devil’s-needles, three inches long, with red abdomens and bodies as big as hummingbirds, sailing round this pond.")

July 17, 1854 ("I am surprised to see crossing my course in middle of Fair Haven Pond great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore.").

July 18, 1854 ("Methinks the asters and goldenrods begin, like the early ripening leaves, with midsummer heats.")

July 19, 1854 ("A wood thrush to-night.")

July 20, 1852 (" It is starlight. You see the first star in the southwest, and know not how much earlier you might have seen it had you looked. Now the first whip-poor- will sings hollowly in the dark pitch pine wood on Bear Garden Hill. And now, when we had thought the day birds gone to roost, the wood thrush takes up the strain.")

July 20, 1853 ("As we looked, a bird flew across the disk of the moon . . . This is the midsummer night's moon.")

July 21, 1852 ("Do we perceive such a deep Indian red after the first starlight at any other season as now in July?”)

July 21, 1852 ("I see the earliest star fifteen or twenty minutes before the red is deepest in the horizon ")
July 23, 1852 ("About three quarters of an hour after sunset the evening red is deepest.")

July 23, 1852 ("The moon, now in her first quarter, now begins to preside,. . .. As the light in the west fades, the sky there, seen between the clouds, has a singular clarity and serenity.") 

July 24, 1853 ("The zizania, some days.")

July 24, 1853 ("The nighthawk squeaks, and the chewink jingles his strain, and the wood thrush")

July 24, 1853 (" I hear no veery.")

July 26, 1852 ("The grandest picture in the world is the sunset sky.")

July 26, 1853 ("I mark again, about this time when the first asters open . . . This the afternoon of the year.")

July 26, 1858 ("Saw bay-wings and huckleberry-birds.")

July 28, 1852 ("Goldenrod and asters have fairly begun; there are several kinds of each out.")

July 28, 1859 ("The season has now arrived when I begin to see further into the water ")

July 30, 1856 ("The wonderful clearness of the water, enabling you to explore the river bottom and many of its secrets now.”)

July 30, 1852 ("How long since I heard a veery?  Do they go, or become silent, when the goldfinches herald the autumn?")

July 30, 1856 ("The water is suddenly clear.”) 

July 31, 1855 ("Our dog-days seem to be turned to a rainy season")

August 4. 1854 ("The autumnal dandelion is now more common.")

August 5, 1851 ("As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where . . . sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment and I see who the company are.")

October 3, 1852 ("A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake.") 

 July 26   < <<<<<  July 27  >>>>>  July 28 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau , July 27

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 ©  2009-2022

https://tinyurl.com/HDT27JULY 

The drought ceases with the dog-days.

July 27. 

8 a. m. — Rains, still quite soakingly. 

June and July perhaps only are the months of drought. The drought ceases with the dog-days. 

P. M. — To White Pond in rain. 

The autumnal dandelion now appears more abundantly within a week. 

Solidago lanceolata also, a few days probably, though only partially open.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1853

The drought ceases with the dog-days. See July 24, 1854 ("A decided rain-storm to-day and yesterday, such as we have not had certainly since May."); July 31, 1855 ("Our dog-days seem to be turned to a rainy season"); August 15, 1858 ("It is the season of mould and mildew, and foggy, muggy, often rainy weather.")

The autumnal dandelion now appears more abundantly within a week. See August 4. 1854 ("The autumnal dandelion is now more common.");  September 13, 1856 ("Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill")

The only hazel I saw in Maine

July 27

Monday. 

There were some yellow lilies (Nuphar), Scutellaria galericulata, clematis (abundant), sweet-gale, "great smilacina" (did I mean S. racemosa?), and beaked hazel, the only hazel I saw in Maine.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("Monday, July 27. Having rapidly loaded the canoe, which the Indian always carefully attended to, that it might be well trimmed, and each having taken a look, as usual, to see that nothing was left, we set out again descending the Caucomgomoc, and turning northeasterly up the Umbazookskus. . . . Having paddled several miles up the Umbazookskus, it suddenly contracted to a mere brook, narrow and swift, the larches and other trees approaching the bank and leaving no open meadow, and we landed to get a black spruce pole for pushing against the stream. . . .Having poled up the narrowest part some three or four miles, the next opening in the sky was over Umbazookskus Lake, which we suddenly entered about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. . . .We crossed the southeast end of the lake to the carry into Mud Pond. Umbazookskus Lake is the head of the Penobscot in this direction, and Mud Pond is the nearest head of the Allegash, one of the chief sources of the St. John. . . . Mud Pond is about halfway from Umbazookskus to Chamberlain Lake, into which it empties, and to which we were bound. . . . After a long while my companion came back, and the Indian with him. We had taken the wrong road, and the Indian had lost us. . . .We then entered another swamp, at a necessarily slow pace, where the walking was worse than ever, not only on account of the water, but the fallen timber, which often obliterated the indistinct trail entirely. . . .and, going back for his bag, my companion once lost his way and came back without it.. . . As I sat waiting for him, it would naturally seem an unaccountable time that he was gone. Therefore, as I could see through the woods that the sun was getting low, and it was uncertain how far the lake might be, even if we were on the right course, and in what part of the world we should find ourselves at night fall, I proposed that I should push through with what speed I could, leaving boughs to mark my path, and find the lake and the Indian, if possible, before night, and send the latter back to carry my companion's bag. . . . If he had not come back to meet us, we probably should not have found him that night, . . .We had come out on a point extending into . . .Chamberlain Lake, west of the outlet of Mud Pond, where there was a broad, gravelly, and rocky shore, encumbered with bleached logs and trees. . . . 

In the middle of the night, as indeed each time that we lay on the shore of a lake, we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances of the traveler, and very unlike the voice of a bird. I could lie awake for hours listening to it, it is so thrilling. When camping in such a wilderness as this, you are prepared to hear sounds from some of its inhabitants which will give voice to its wildness. . . This of the loon I do not mean its laugh , but its looning , is a long - drawn call , as it were , sometimes singularly human to my ear , hoo - hoo - ooooo , like the hallooing of a man on a very high key , having thrown his voice into his head . I have heard a sound exactly like it when breathing heavily through my own nostrils , half awake at ten at night , suggesting my affinity to the loon ; as if its language were but a dialect of my own , after all . Formerly , when lying awake at midnight in those woods , I had listened to hear some words or sylla- bles of their language , but it chanced that I listened in vain until I heard the cry of the loon . I have heard it occasionally on the ponds of my native town , but there its wildness is not enhanced by the surrounding scenery.

 I was awakened at midnight by some heavy, low- flying bird, probably a loon, flapping by close over my head, along the shore. So, turning the other side of my half-clad body to the fire, I sought slumber again.")

Yellow lilies. See July 27, 1856 ("The yellow lilies stand up seven or eight inches above the water")

In the middle of the night . . .we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. See June twenty-four two thousand two ("across the dusky lake / the voice of a loon / penetrates lost time")

far over the lake

in the middle of the night

the voice of the loon

July 27, 1857 

(The Maine Woods)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  July 27, 1857

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-570727

A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle.

July 27. 

Lobelia cardinalis, three or four days, with similar white glands (?) on edges of leaves as in L. spicata. Why is not this noticed? 

Cornus sericea about done.

As I paddle by Dodge's Brook, a great devil's-needle alights on my paddle, between my hands. It is about three inches long and three and a half in spread of wings, without spots, black and yellow, with green eyes (?). It keeps its place within a few inches of my eyes, while I was paddle some twenty-five rods against a strong wind, clinging closely. Perhaps it chose that place for coolness this hot day. 

To-day, as yesterday, it is more comfortable to be walking or paddling at 2 and 3 p. m., when there is wind, but at five the wind goes down and it is very still and suffocating. I afterward saw other great devil's-needles, the forward part of their bodies light-blue and very stout. 

The Stellaria longifolia is out of bloom and drying up. Vide some of this date pressed. 

At Bath Place, above, many yellow lily pads are left high and dry for a long time, in the zizania hollow, a foot or more above the dry sand, yet with very firm and healthy green leaves, almost the only ones not eaten by insects now. This river is quite low. 

The yellow lilies stand up seven or eight inches above the water, and, opposite to Merriam's, the rocks show their brown backs very thick (though some are concealed), like sheep and oxen lying down and chewing the cud in a meadow. I frequently run on to one — glad when it's the smooth side — and am tilted up this way or that, or spin round as on a central pivot. They bear the red or blue paint from many a boat, and here their moss has been rubbed off. 

Ceratophyllum is now apparently in bloom commonly, with its crimson-dotted involucre. 

I am surprised to find kalmiana lilies scattered thinly all along the Assabet, a few small, commonly reddish pads in middle of river, but I see no flowers. It is their great bluish waved (some green) radical leaves which I had mistaken for those of the heart-leaf, the floating leaves being so small. These and vallisneria washed up some time. The radical leaves of the heart-leaf are very small and rather triangular. 

I see, on a rock in midstream, a peetweet within a foot of a turtle, both eying me anxiously within two rods, but not minding each other. 

Zizania scarce out some days at least.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1856

A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle... See  June 13, 1854 ("I float homeward over water almost perfectly smooth, my sail so idle that I count ten devil's-needles resting along it at once."); July 17, 1854 ("I am surprised to see crossing my course in middle of Fair Haven Pond great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore.").

June 13. 

Floating homeward, I 

count devil's-needles at rest 

on my idle sail.

July 17.

Flying shore to shore, 

yellowish devil's-needles 

cross their Atlantic. 

July 27

A devil's-needle 

keeps its place on my paddle

against a strong wind.

July 27, 1856

Sunset from Fair Haven Hill.

July 27.

It has been a clear, cool, breezy day for the season. There is only one white bar of cloud in the north.  The river is silvery, as it were plated and polished smooth, with the slightest possible tinge of gold, to-night. The sun is now set.  All glow on the clouds is gone, except from one higher, small, rosy pink isle.  The solemnity of the evening sky!  Just before the earliest star I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1852


Tuesday. 4 p. m. — To Assabet behind Lee place. 

It is pleasing to behold at this season contrasted shade and sunshine on the side of neighboring hills. They are not so attractive to the eye when all in the shadow of a cloud or wholly open to the sunshine. Each must enhance the other. 

That the luxury of walking in the river may be perfect it must be very warm, such as are few days even in July, so that the breeze on those parts of the body that have just been immersed may not produce the least chilliness. It cannot be too warm, so that, with a shirt to fend the sun from your back, you may walk with perfect indifference, or rather with equal pleasure, alternately in deep and in shallow water. Both water and air must be unusually warm; otherwise we shall feel no impulse to cast ourselves into and remain in the stream. To-day it is uncomfortably cool for such a walk. 

It is very pleasant to walk up and down the stream, however, studying the further bank, which is six or seven feet high and completely covered with verdure of various kinds. 

I observe grape-vines with green clusters almost fully grown hanging over the water, and hazelnut husks are fully formed and are richly, autumnally, significant. Viburnum dentatum, elder, and red-stemmed cornel, all with an abundance of green berries, help clothe the bank, and the Asclepias incarnata and meadow-rue fill the crevices. Above all there is the cardinal-flower just opened, close to the water's edge, remarkable for its intense scarlet color, contrasting with the surrounding green. 

I see young breams in small schools, only one inch long, light-colored and semitransparent as yet, long in proportion to their depth. Some two inches long are ludicrously deep already, like little halibuts, making the impression, by their form, of vast size like halibuts or whales. They appear to be attended and guarded still by their parents. What innumerable enemies they have to encounter! 

The sun on the bottom is indispensable, and you must have your back to it. 

Woodcocks have been common by the streams and springs in woods for some weeks. 

Aster dumosus ( ?) by wood-paths. 

A quarter before seven p. m. — To Cliffs. 

It has been a clear, cool, breezy day for the season.

There is only one white bar of cloud in the north. I now perceive the peculiar scent of the corn-fields. The corn is just high enough, and this hour is favorable. I should think the ears had hardly set yet. Half an hour before sundown, you perceive the cool, damp air in valleys surrounded by woods, where dew is already formed. 

I am sure that if I call for a companion in my walk I have relinquished in my design some closeness of communion with Nature. The walk will surely be more commonplace. The inclination for society indicates a distance from Nature. I do not design so wild and mysterious a walk. 

The bigoted and sectarian forget that without religion or devotion of some kind nothing great was ever accomplished. 

On Fair Haven Hill. The slight distraction of picking berries is favorable to a mild, abstracted, poetic mood, to sequestered or transcendental thinking. I return ever more fresh to my mood from such slight interruptions. 

All the clouds in the sky are now close to the west horizon, so that the sun is nearly down before they are reached and lighted or gilded. Wachusett, free of clouds, has a fine purplish tinge, as if the juice of grapes had been squeezed over it, darkening into blue. I hear the scratching sound of a worm at work in this hardwood-pile on which I sit. 

We are most disturbed by the sun's dazzle when it is lowest. Now the upper edge of that low blue bank is gilt where the sun has disappeared, leaving a glory in the horizon through which a few cloudy peaks send raylike shadows. Now a slight rosy blush is spreading north and south over the horizon sky and tingeing a few small scattered clouds in the east. A blue tinge south ward makes the very edge of the earth there a mountain. That low bank of cloud in the west is now exactly the color of the mountains, a dark blue. 

We should think sacredly, with devotion. That is one thing, at least, we may do magnanimously. May not every man have some private affair which he can conduct greatly, unhurriedly? 

The river is silvery, as it were plated and polished smooth, with the slightest possible tinge of gold, tonight. How beautiful the meanders of a river, thus revealed! How beautiful hills and vales, the whole surface of the earth a succession of these great cups, falling away from dry or rocky edges to gelid green meadows and water in the midst, where night already is setting in! 

The thrush, now the sun is apparently set, fails not to sing. Have I heard the veery lately ? 

All glow on the clouds is gone, except from one higher, small, rosy pink or flesh-colored isle. The sun is now probably set. There are no clouds on high to reflect a golden light into the river. 

How cool and assuaging the thrush's note after the fever of the day! I doubt if they have anything so richly wild in Europe. So long a civilization must have banished it. It will only be heard in America, perchance, while our star is in the ascendant. I should be very much surprised if I were to hear in the strain of the nightingale such unexplored wildness and fertility, reaching to sundown, inciting to emigration. Such a bird must itself have emigrated long ago. 

Why, then, was I born in America ? I might ask. I should like to ask the assessors what is the value of that blue mountain range in the northwest horizon to Concord, and see if they would laugh or seriously set about calculating it. How poor, comparatively, should we be without it ! It would be descending to the scale of the merchant to say it is worth its weight in gold. The privilege of beholding it, as an ornament, a suggestion, a provocation, a heaven on earth. 

If I were one of the fathers of the town I would not sell this right which we now enjoy for all the merely material wealth and prosperity conceivable. If need were, we would rather all go down together. 

The huckleberry-bird as usual, and the nighthawk squeaks and booms, and the bullfrog trumps, just before the earliest star. The evening red is much more remarkable than the morning red. 

The solemnity of the evening sky! I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds which have gathered; she makes nothing red. 

New creaking or shrilling from crickets (?) for a long time past, more fine and piercing than the other.

 Aster dumosus (?) by wood-paths.

That the luxury of walking in the river may be perfect it must be very warm, such as are few days even in July .. See July 10, 1852 (" I make quite an excursion up and down the river in the water, a fluvial, a water walk. . . .Walking up and down a river in torrid weather with only a hat to shade the head.”); July 17, 1860 ("The soft sand on the bottom of Walden, as deep as I can wade, feels very warm to my feet, while the water feels cold.");July 22, 1851("I bathe, and in a few hours I bathe again, not remembering that I was wetted before. When I come to the river, I take off my clothes and carry them over, then bathe and wash off the mud and continue my walk. I would fain take rivers in my walks endwise.”).

If I call for a companion in my walk I have relinquished in my design some closeness of communion with Nature. The inclination for society indicates a distance from Nature. See July 26, 1852 ("By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. . . .The mind that perceives clearly any natural beauty is in that instant withdrawn from human society.")

 The solemnity of the evening sky! See July 26, 1852 ("The grandest picture in the world is the sunset sky."); December 27, 1851 ("Sunset from Fair Haven Hill.")

New creaking or shrilling from crickets . . . more fine and piercing than the other. See July 28, 1854 ("Last evening it was much cooler, and I heard a decided fall sound of crickets"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in July

Walk from Cohasset to Duxbury and sail thence to Clark's Island.

July 27.

Visit the large tupelo tree (Nyssa multiflora) in Scituate, whose rounded and open top I can see from Mr. Sewal's, the tree which George Emerson went twenty-five miles to see, called sometimes snag-tree and swamp hornbeam, also pepperidge and gum-tree. Hard to split. We have it in Concord. See the buckthorn, which is naturalized.


After taking the road by Webster's beyond South Marshfield, I walk a long way at noon, hot and thirsty, before I find a suitable place to sit and eat my dinner. At length I am obliged to put up with a small shade close to the ruts, where the only stream I have seen for some time crosses the road. 

Here numerous robins come to cool and wash themselves and to drink.

They stand in the water up to their bellies, from time to time wetting their wings and tails and also ducking their heads and sprinkling the water over themselves; then they sit on a fence near by to dry. A goldfinch comes and does the same, accompanied by the less brilliant female. These birds evidently enjoy their bath greatly, and it seems indispensable to them.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1851



Visit the large tupelo tree (Nyssa multiflora) in Scituate, whose rounded and open top I can see from Mr. Sewal's.  See July 5, 1855 (The great tupelo on the edge of Scituate is very conspicuous for many miles .”) See also  June 26, 1857 ("The largest tupelo I remember in Concord is on the northerly edge of Staples's clearing."); June 30, 1856 ("By the roadside, Long Plain, North Fairhaven, observed a tupelo seven feet high with a rounded top, shaped like an umbrella, eight feet diameter."); September 7, 1857 ("Measured that large tupelo behind Merriam's which now is covered with green fruit, and its leaves begin to redden.") ~ Nyssa sylvatica, commonly known as the Black Tupelo, is a medium-sized deciduous tree native to eastern North America, from New England and southern Ontario south to central Florida and eastern Texas. ~ iNaturalist

Sail and paddle down river.

July 27.

The water has begun to be clear and sunny, revealing the fishes and countless minnows of all sizes and colors, this year's brood. 

How easy for the young ducks to hide amid the pickerel-weed along our river, while a boat goes by! and this plant attains its height when these water-fowl are of a size to need its shelter. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1860 

The water has begun to be clear and sunny. See July 28, 1859 ("The season has now arrived when I begin to see further into the water, -- see the bottom, the weeds, and fishes more than before.”); July 30, 1856 ("The water is suddenly clear. . .All the secrets of the river bottom are revealed”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Season of Sunny Water

Wet summer ends

July 27.
Now dry weather calls.
The Taliban mows the lawn
long since overgrown.

ZPHX 7/27/09



Before the early star
I turn round;
there shines the moon
silvering small clouds.

HDT, 7/27/52