I smell the fragrant everlasting concealed in the higher grass and weeds, some distance off.

August 11

P. M. — To Beck Stow’s. 

I see of late a good many young sparrows (and old) of different species flitting about. That blackberry-field of Gowing’s in the Great Fields, this side of his swamp, is a famous place for them. I see a dozen or more, old and young, perched on the wall. As I walk along, they fly up from the grass and alight on the wall, where they sit on the alert with outstretched necks. 

Nearest and unalarmed sit the huckleberry-birds; next, quite on the alert, the bay-wings, with which and further off the yellow-browed sparrows, of whom one at least has a clear yellowish breast; add to which that I heard there abouts the seringo note. If made by this particular bird, I should infer it was Fringilla passerina. I still hear there at intervals the bay-wing, huckleberry-bird, and seringo. 

Now is our rainy season. It has rained half the days for ten days past. Instead of dog-day clouds and mists, we have a rainy season. You must walk armed with an umbrella. It is wettest in the woods, where the air has had no chance to dry the bushes at all. 

The Myriophyllum ambiguum, apparently variety natans, is now apparently in its prime. Some buds have gone to seed; others are not yet open. It is floating all over the surface of the pool, by the road, at the swamp, — long utricularia-like masses without the bladders. The emersed part, of linear or pectinate leaves, rises only about half an inch; the rest, eighteen inches more or less in length, consists of an abundance of capillary pinnate leaves, covered with slime or conserve (?) as a web. Evidently the same plant, next the shore and creeping over the mud, only two or three inches long, is without the capillary leaves, having roots instead, and apparently is the variety limosum (?), I suspect erroneously so called. 

Heard a fine, sprightly, richly warbled strain from a bird perched on the top of a bean-pole. It was at the same time novel yet familiar to me. I soon recognized it for the strain of the purple finch, which I have not heard lately. But though it appeared as large, it seemed a different-colored bird. With my glass, four rods off, I saw it to be a goldfinch. It kept repeating this warble of the purple finch for several minutes. A very surprising note to be heard now, when birds generally are so silent. Have not heard the purple finch of late. 

I conclude that the goldfinch is a very fine and powerful singer, and the most successful and remarkable mocking-bird that we have. In the spring I heard it imitate the thrasher exactly, before that bird had arrived, and now it imitates the purple finch as perfectly, after the latter bird has ceased to sing! It is a surprising vocalist. It did not cease singing till I disturbed it by my nearer approach, and then it went off with its usual mew, succeeded by its watery twitter in its ricochet flight. Have they not been more common all summer than formerly?

I go along plum path behind Adolphus Clark’s. This is a peculiar locality for plants. The Desmodium Canadense is now apparently in its prime there and very common, with its rather rich spikes of purple flowers, — the most (?) conspicuous of the desmodiums. It might be called Desmodium Path. 

Also the small rough sunflower (now abundant) and the common apocynum (also in bloom as well as going and gone to seed) are very common. 

I smell the fragrant everlasting concealed in the higher grass and weeds there, some distance off. It reminds me of the lateness of the season. 

Saw the elodea (not long) and a dangle-berry ripe (not long) at Beck Stow’s. 

See a small variety of helianthus growing with the divaricatus, on the north side of Peter’s path, two rods east of bars southeast of his house. It is an imperfect flower, but apparently answers best to the H. tracheliifolius. There is evidently a great variety in respect to form, petiole, venation, roughness, thickness, and color of the leaves of helianthuses. 

Saw yesterday the Utricularia vulgaris, apparently in its prime, yellowing those little pools in Lincoln at the town bound by Walden. Their stems and leaves seem to half fill them. Some pools, like that at bath-place by pond in R. W. E.’s wood, will have for all vegetation only the floating immersed stems and leaves, light brown, of this plant, without a flower, perhaps on account of shade. 

The great bullfrogs, of various colors from dark brown to greenish yellow, lie out on the surface of these slimy pools or in the shallow water by the shore, motionless and philosophic. Toss a chip to one, and he will instantly leap and seize and drop it as quick. Motionless and indifferent as they appear, they are ready to leap upon their prey at any instant.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 11, 1858

Nearest sit the huckleberry-birds; next the bay-wings, with which and further off the yellow-browed sparrows, of whom one at least has a clear yellowish breast I infer was Fringilla passerina. See August 8, 1858 (“I see at Clamshell Hill a yellow-browed sparrow sitting quite near on a haycock, pluming itself.”); and note to July 26, 1858 (“ A broad egg, white with large reddish and purplish brown spots chiefly about large end. . .  Could not see the bird; only saw bay-wings and huckleberry-birds. I suspect it may be the Fringilla passerina? He says the bird had a clear yellowish-white breast!”); June 28, 1858 (“According to Audubon’s and Wilson’s plates, the Fringilla passerina has for the most part clear yellowish-white breast.... Audubon says that the eggs . . .of the yellow-winged sparrow are “of a dingy white, sprinkled with brown spots.”); May 28, 1856 (“A seringo or yellow-browed (?) sparrow’s nest . . .Egg, bluish-white ground, thickly blotched with brown, yet most like a small ground bird’s egg, rather broad at one end, pretty fresh.”)

The seringo note. See April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye,and the rhythm of its strain is ker chick | ker che | ker-char—r-r-r-r | chick, the last two bars being the part chiefly heard."). See June 26, 1856 (" According to Audubon’s and Wilson’s plates, ... the Savannah sparrow no conspicuous yellow on shoulder, a yellow brow, and white crown line. Rode to Sconticut Neck or Point in Fairhaven, five or six miles, and saw, apparently, the F. Savanna near their nests (my seringo note), restlessly flitting about me from rock to rock within a rod. Distinctly yellow-browed and spotted breast, not like plate of passerina. Audubon says that the eggs of the Savannah sparrow “are of a pale bluish color, softly mottled with purplish brown,””); May 28, 1856 ("A seringo or yellow-browed (?) sparrow’s nest . . . Egg, bluish-white ground, thickly blotched with brown . . ..”); October 22, 1855 ("I sit on a bank at the brook crossing, beyond the grove, to watch a flock of seringos, perhaps Savannah sparrows, which, with some F. hyemalis and other sparrows, are actively flitting about amid the alders and dogwood. "); July 16, 1854 ("Is it the yellow-winged or Savannah sparrow with yellow alternating with dark streaks on throat, as well as yellow over eye, reddish flesh-colored legs, and two light bars on wings?“). See also Guide to Thoreau’s Birds "(Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds.)”


Heard a fine, sprightly, richly warbled strain from a bird perched on the top of a bean-pole.I conclude that the goldfinch is a very fine and powerful singer, and the most successful and remarkable mocking-bird that we have. See April 19, 1858 ("This was the most varied and sprightly performer of any bird I have heard this year, and it is strange that I never heard the strain before. It may be this note which is taken for the thrasher’s before the latter comes.") See also June 25, 1853 ("I think it must be the purple finch . . . which I see and hear singing so sweetly and variedly in the gardens . .. on a bean-pole or fence-picket. It has a little of the martin warble and of the canary bird.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

I smell the fragrant everlasting concealed in the higher grass and weeds. See August 10, 1856 ("Fragrant everlasting, maybe some days.”);  August 13, 1856 (“Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime?. . . Does not the season require this tonic?“); August 29, 1856 ("Fragrant everlasting in prime and very abundant, whitening Carter's pasture.”); September 19, 1852 ("The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound. "); September 26, 1852 ("The small cottony leaves of the fragrant everlasting in the fields for some time, protected, as it were, by a little web of cotton against frost and snow, — a little dense web of cotton spun over it, — entangled in it, — as if to restrain it from rising higher."); February 25, 1857 (“The fragrant everlasting has retained its fragrance all winter.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aromatic Herbs

The small rough sunflower (now abundant) and see a small variety of helianthus growing with the divaricatus, on the north side of Peter’s path. See August 1, 1852 ("The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats”); August 11, 1856 ("A new sunflower at Wheeler's Bank, . . ., which I will call the tall rough sunflower; opened say August 1st”); August 12, 1856 (“Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus (which may have opened near August 1st)”); August 29, 1856 (The Helianthus decapetalus, apparently a variety, with eight petals, about three feet high, leaves petioled, but not wing-petioled, and broader-leaved than that of August 12th“)

It reminds me of the lateness of the season. See July 26, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!”); July 30 1852 (After midsummer we have a belated feeling . . .") ; August 18, 1853 ("What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now”)

August 11.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 11

 

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 © 2009-2021

Just after sunrise

 August 15.

August 15, 2022

5.15 a. m. — To Hill by boat. 

By 5.30 the fog has withdrawn from the channel here and stands southward over the Texas Plain, forty or fifty feet high.

Some birds, after they have ceased to sing by day, continue to sing faintly in the morning now as in spring. 

On the top of the Hill I see the goldfinch eating the seeds of the Canada thistle. I rarely approach a bed of them or other thistles nowadays but I hear the cool twitter of the goldfinch about it. 

I hear a red squirrel's reproof, too, as in spring, from the hickories. 

Now, just after sunrise, I see the western steeples with great distinctness, — tall white lines. 

The fog eastward over the Great Meadows appears indefinitely far, as well as boundless.  It is interesting when the fluviatile trees begin to be seen through it and the sun is shining above it. By 6 o'clock it has risen up too much to be interesting. 

The button-bush is now nearly altogether out of bloom, so that it is too late to see the river's brink in its perfection. It must be seen between the blooming of the mikania and the going out of bloom of the button bush – before you feel this sense of lateness in the year, before the meadows are shorn and the grass of hills and pastures is thus withered and russet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 15, 1854

By 5.30 the fog has withdrawn . . .and stands. . . forty or fifty feet high.. . .By 6 o'clock it has risen up too much to be interesting. See July 25, 1852 ("Birds are heard singing from the midst of the fog. And in one short hour this sea will all evaporate and the sun be reflected from farm windows")

Some birds . . . continue to sing faintly in the morning. See August 1, 1852 ("Singing birds are scarce."); August 6, 1852 ("Birds leave off singing."); August 21, 1852 ("There are as few or fewer birds heard than flowers seen "); August 22, 1853 ("I hear but few notes of birds these days")

I see the goldfinch eating the seeds of the Canada thistle. See August 9, 1856 (The goldfinch twittering over. . . already feeding on the thistle seeds”); August 12, 1854 (“I see goldfinches nowadays on the lanceolate thistles, apparently after the seeds. ”); August 14, 1858 ("The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it."); September 4, 1860 (“The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch and also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles

I hear a red squirrel's reproof, too, as in spring. See March 30, 1859 ("Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

Now, just after sunrise, I see the western steeples with great distinctness. See October 20, 1854 ("This [sunrise] is the time to look westward. All the villages, steeples, and houses on that side were revealed; but on the east all the landscape was a misty and gilded obscurity.")

It must be seen between the blooming of the mikania and the going out of bloom of the button bush, before you feel this sense of lateness in the year,  See July 26, 1853 ("How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent! This the afternoon of the year"); July 30 1852 ("After midsummer we have a belated feeling . . . just as in middle age man anticipates the end of life"); August 2, 1860 (" The button-bush is about in prime . . .Mikania begun, and now, perhaps, the river's brink is at its height."); August 5, 1854 ("The river's brim is in perfection, after the mikania is in bloom and before the pontederia and pads and the willows are too much imbrowned, and the meadows all shorn."); August 11, 1853 (" Button-bush and mikania now in prime,"); August 18, 1853 (“What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now?"); August 22, 1858 ("Now that the mikania begins to prevail the button-bush has done.")

August 15.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 15

Just after sunrise

I see the western steeples

with great distinctness

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Just after sunrise

 "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-540815

The night of the year approaches.

August 18

Many leaves of the cultivated cherry are turned yellow, and a very few leaves of the elm have fallen, — the dead or prematurely ripe. 

The abundant and repeated rains since this month came in have made the last fortnight and more seem like a rainy season in the tropics, — warm, still copious rains falling straight down, contrasting with the cold, driving spring rains. Now again I am caught in a heavy shower in Moore's pitch pines on edge of Great Fields, and am obliged to stand crouching under my umbrella till the drops turn to streams, which find their way through my umbrella, and the path up the hillside is all afloat, a succession of puddles at different levels, each bounded by a ridge of dead pine-needles. 

What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill, and if we had not performed anything before, we should not now? The season of flowers or of promise may be said to be over, and now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit? 

The night of the year is approaching. What have we done with our talent? All nature prompts and reproves us. How early in the year it begins to be late! The sound of the crickets, even in the spring, makes our hearts beat with its awful reproof, while it encourages with its seasonable warning. It matters not by how little we have fallen behind; it seems irretrievably late. 

The year is full of warnings of its shortness, as is life. The sound of so many insects and the sight of so many flowers affect us so, — the creak of the cricket and the sight of the prunella and autumnal dandelion. They say, "For the night cometh in which no man may work."

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, August 18, 1853 

What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill . . . See  August 18, 1856 ("It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, . . . so little brought to pass! "). See also .July 30 1852 (After midsummer we have a belated feeling as if we had all been idlers, and are forward to see in each sight and hear in each sound some presage of the fall, just as in middle age man anticipates the end of life.);

But where is our fruit? See August 17, 1851  ("Ah! if I could so live that . . . when small fruits are ripe, my fruits might be ripe also! ! "); June 17, 1854 (“The season of small fruits has arrived. We are a little saddened, because we begin to see the interval between our hopes and their fulfillment.”); Augusst 9, 1854  ("Walden" published.")

The night of the year is approaching. See August, 19, 1853 (" The day is an epitome of the year.")

The sound of the crickets. . . with its seasonable warning. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

August 18. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau August 18

This sense of lateness.

Now is the season of fruits

but where is our fruit?

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The night of the year approaches.

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-530818

The Afternoon of the Year

July 26. 

I reckon that about nine tenths of the flowers of the year have now blossomed. 

Dog-days, - sultry, sticky weather, - now when the corn is topped out. Clouds without rain. Rains when it will. Old spring and summer signs fail.

The bobolinks are just beginning to fly in flocks, and I hear their link link. I see the young birds also, just able to get out of my way above the weeds and bushes of the low grounds their tails not grown out to steady them.

Lark, too seen now, four or five together, sing as of yore; also the goldfinch twitters over oftener.

I notice to-day the first purplish aster, a pretty sizable one; may have been out a day or two, near the brook beyond Hubbard's Grove, - A.Radula.

I mark again the sound of crickets or locusts about alders, etc. about this time when the first asters open, which makes you fruitfully meditative, helps condense your thoughts, like the mel dews in the afternoon. This the afternoon of the year.

How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent! Such little objects check the diffuse tide of our thoughts and bring it to a head, which thrills us. They are such fruits as music, poetry, love, which humanity bears.

Saw one of the common wild roses (R. lucida?).

The swamp blackberry ripe in open ground. 

The Rhus copallina is not yet quite out, though the glabra is in fruit. 

The smaller purple fringed orchis has not quite filled out its spike. What a surprise to detect under the dark, damp, cavernous copse, where some wild beast might fitly prowl, this splendid flower, silently standing with all its eyes on you! It has a rich fragrance withal. 

July 26, 2013

Rain in the evening.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 26, 1853

Dog-days, - sultry, sticky weather, - now when the corn is topped out . . . when the first asters open, the sound of crickets or locusts that makes you fruitfully meditative. See July 26, 1854 ("The peculiarity of the stream is . . . a dog-day density of shade reflected darkly in the water . . . Almost constantly I hear borne on the wind from far, mingling with the sound of the wind, the z-ing locust, scarcely like a distinct sound"); July 26, 1859 ("Dogdayish.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Locust, Dogdayish Days

This the afternoon of the year.  See August, 19, 1853 (" The day is an epitome of the year.”);
August 23, 1853 "I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day — say an August day — and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year.”)

The bobolinks are just beginning to fly in flocks, and I hear their link link. I see the young birds also, just able to get out of my way. See July 19, 1855 ("Young bobolinks; one of the first autumnalish notes."); August 15, 1852 ("I see a dense, compact flock of bobolinks going off in the air over a field. They cover the rails and alders, and go rustling off with a brassy, tinkling note as I approach, revealing their yellow breasts and bellies. This is an autumnal sight, that small flock of grown birds in the afternoon sky.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

I notice to-day the first purplish aster. See July 23, 1859 ("Aster Radula, how long?"); July 25, 1857 {Maine woods} ("Here, among others, were the Aster Radula, just in bloom"); July 28, 1852 ("Aster Radula (?) in J. P. Brown's meadow.")

How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent! See July 28, 1854 ("Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month , — that the year was of indefinite promise before, but that, after the first intense heats , we postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year, and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down- hill of the year .) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Midsummer midlife blues

Such little objects check the diffuse tide of our thoughts and bring it to a head, which thrills us. See September 3, 1853 ("I will endeavor to separate the tide in my thoughts, or what is due to the influence of the moon, from the current distractions and fluctuations.")

Music, poetry, love . . . See November 30, 1858 ("music, poetry, beauty, and the mystery of life . . .”)

Saw one of the common wild roses (R. lucida?) See July 17, 1854 ("The late rose not fairly begun along the river, now when lucida is leaving off. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

The smaller purple fringed orchis has not quite filled out its spike. See July 21, 1851 ("The small purple orchis, its spikes half opened "); July 24, 1856 ("The small purple fringed orchis, apparently three or four days at least");  July 30, 1853 ("A small purple orchis (Platanthera psycodes), quite small, so that I perceive what I called by this name before must have been the fimbriata."); August 1, 1852 ("Found a long, dense spike of the Orchis psycodes. Much later this than the great orchis. The same, only smaller and denser, not high-colored enough. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Fringed Orchids

July 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 26

I notice to-day

the first purplish aster –

Aster Radula 

They are such fruits as 

music, poetry, love, which 

humanity bears.

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 © 2009-2021