I saw the seal of evening on the river.

August 31.

August 31, 2017

Half an hour before sunset I was at Tupelo Cliff, when, looking up from my botanizing, I saw the seal of evening on the river. There was a quiet beauty in the landscape at that hour which my senses were prepared to appreciate. 

• The sun going down on the west side, that hand being already in shadow for the most part, but his rays lighting up the water and the willows and pads even more than before. His rays then fell at right angles on their stems.

• I sitting on the old brown geologic rocks, their feet submerged and covered with weedy moss. Sometimes their tops are submerged.

• The cardinal-flowers standing by me.

The trivialness of the day is past. 

• The greater stillness, the serenity of the air, its coolness and transparency, the mistiness being condensed, are favorable to thought. (The pensive eve.)

• The coolness of evening comes to condense the haze of noon and make the air transparent and the outline of objects firm and distinct, and chaste (chaste eve). 

Even as I am made more vigorous by my bath, am more continent of thought. After bathing, even at noonday, a man realizes a morning or evening life. The evening air is such a bath for both mind and body.

When I have walked all day in vain under the torrid sun and the world has been all trivial, ― 

    then at eve the sun goes down westward, 

    and the wind goes down with it, 

    and the dews begin to purify the air and make it transparent, 

    and the lakes and rivers acquire a glassy stillness, reflecting the skies, the reflex of the day.

I too am at the top of my condition for perceiving beauty.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 31, 1851

The pensive eve. See August 31, 1852 ("This is the most glorious part of this day, the serenest, warmest, brightest part, and the most suggestive . . . Evening is pensive. The serenity is far more remarkable to those who are on the water."); see also August 2, 1854 ("I feel the necessity of deepening the stream of my life. . .I am inclined now for a pensive evening walk."); August 11, 1853 ("The serene hour, the season of reflection! The pensive season."); May 17, 1853 ("Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The hour before sunset

August 31. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 31

The greater stillness

is favorable to thought –

pensive evening.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, pensive evening

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-510831

Thoughts driven inward –The long slope toward winter.

July 15.

July 14, 2014

Rained still in forenoon; now cloudy. Fields comparatively deserted to-day and yesterday. Hay stands cocked in them on all sides. Some, being shorn, are clear for the walker. It is but a short time that he has to dodge the haymakers. 

This cooler, still, cloudy weather after the rain is very autumnal and restorative to our spirits. 

The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall. All these sounds dispose our minds to serenity.  

We seem to be passing, or to have passed, a dividing line between spring and autumn, and begin to descend the long slope toward winter. 

On the shady side of the hill I go along Hubbard's walls toward the bathing-place, stepping high to keep my feet as dry as may be. 

All is stillness in the fields. My thoughts are driven inward, even as clouds and trees are reflected in the still, smooth water. 

There is an inwardness even in the mosquitoes' hum, while I am picking blueberries in the dank wood.

The stems and leaves of various asters and golden-rods, which ere long will reign along the way, begin to be conspicuous.  

There are many butterflies, yellow and red, about the Asclepias incarnata now. 

Many birds begin to fly in small flocks like grown-up broods. 

Green grapes and cranberries also remind me of the advancing season.

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

I hear the link link of the bobolink. See July 15, 1856 ("Bobolinks are heard — their link, link — above and amid the tall rue which now whitens the meadows”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

We seem to be passing a dividing line between spring and autumn, and begin to descend the long slope toward winter. See   July 19, 1851 ("Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?");  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.”) 

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

Thoughts driven inward –

clouds and trees reflected in

the still, smooth water.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Thoughts driven inward

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

tinyurl.com/hdt540714

I have come to this hill to see the sun go down.

6 p. m. — To Cliffs. 

Now, just before sundown, a nighthawk is circling, imp-like, with undulating, irregular flight over the sprout-land on the Cliff Hill, with an occasional squeak and showing the spots on his wings. He does not circle away from this place, and I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath and a mate there sitting. 

This squeak and occasional booming is heard in the evening air, while the stillness on the side of the village makes more distinct the increased hum of insects. I see at a distance a kingbird or blackbird pursuing a crow lower down the hill, like a satellite revolving about a black planet. 

I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. I would fain drink a draft of Nature's serenity. Let deep answer to deep. 

Already I see reddening clouds reflected in the smooth mirror of the river, a delicate tint, unlike anything in the sky as yet. The evergreens now look even black by contrast with the sea of fresh and light-green foliage which surrounds them. Children have been to the Cliffs and woven wreaths or chaplets of oak leaves, which they have left, for they were unconsciously attracted by the beauty of the leaves now. 

The sun goes down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot weather, as if the western horizon or the lower stratum of the air were filled with the hot dust of the day. 

I love to sit here and look off into the broad deep vale in which the shades of night are beginning to prevail. When the sun has set, the river becomes more white and distinct in the landscape. 

I return by moonlight.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 5, 1854

I associate him with two gray eggs. See June 1, 1853 and June 7, 1853.

I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. See July 14, 1854 (Health is a sound relation to nature); December 29, 1856 ("We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. . . .I am aware that I recover some sanity which I had lost almost the instant that I come abroad."). See also August 14, 1854 ("I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, — to behold and commune with something grander than man.”)

. . .to recover sanity: A reference to HDT's agitation over the rendition of Anthony Burns.??? Probably not.  See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854, June 16, 1854 and ""Slavery in Massachusetts,"("The remembrance of my country spoils my walk . . . I walk toward one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base?  We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them; when we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? ") ~ Zphx

June 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 5

I would drink a draft

of Nature's serenity –

let deep answer deep.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, To see the sun go down

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-540605

To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe.

May 28

Sunday. 

May 28, 2014

The F. hyemalis, fox-colored sparrow, rusty grackles, tree sparrows, have all gone by; also the purple finch. The snipe has ceased (?) to boom. I have not heard the phoebe of late, and methinks the bluebird and the robin are not heard so often (the former certainly not ). Those tumultuous morning concerts of sparrows, tree and song, hyemalis, and grackles, like leaves on the trees, are past, and the woodland quire will rather be diminished than increased henceforth. 

But, on the other hand, toads and frogs and insects, especially at night, all through June, betray by the sounds they make their sensitiveness to the increasing temperature, and theirs especially is the music which ushers in the summer. Each warmer night, like this, the toads and frogs sing with increased energy, and already fill the air with sound, though the bullfrogs have not yet begun to trump in earnest. To this add the hum and creak of insects. These still herald or expect the summer. The birds do not foretell that. 

12 M.  By boat to Lee's Cliff.  

The River is still so high that I am obliged to lower my mast at the bridges. Even this spring the arches of the stone bridge were completely concealed by the flood, and yet at midsummer I can sail under them without lowering my mast. 

At the old bridge at the hill, the water being quite smooth, I see a water-bug cross straight from the south to the north side, about six rods, furrowing the water in a waving line, there being no other insects near him on the surface. It takes but about a minute. 

Red clover at Clamshell, a day or two. 

The huckleberries, excepting the late, are now generally in blossom, their rich clear red contrasting with the light-green leaves; frequented by honey-bees, full of promise for the summer. One of the great crops of the year. These are the blossoms of the Vacciniece, or Whortleberry Family, which affords so large a proportion of our berries. 

The crop of oranges, lemons, nuts, and raisins, and figs, quinces, etc., etc., not to mention tobacco and the like, is of no importance to us compared with these. 

The berry-promising flower of the Vacciniece. This crop grows wild all over the country, — wholesome, bountiful, and free, — a real ambrosia — and yet men — the foolish demons that they are — devote themselves to culture of tobacco, inventing slavery and a thousand other curses as the means, — with infinite pains and inhumanity go raise tobacco all their lives. Tobacco is the staple instead of huckleberries.

The huckleberries

now generally in blossom

so full of promise.

Frequented by bees

their rich clear red contrasting

with the light-green leaves.

Wholesome bountiful

and free, this crop grows wild all

over the country.

Finding the low blackberry nearly open, I looked long and at last, where the vine ran over a rock on the south hillside, the reflected heat had caused it [to] open fully its large white blossoms. In such places, apparently yesterday. The high blackberry in similar places, at least to-day. 

At these rocks I hear a sharp peep, methinks of a peetweet dashing away. Four pale-green (?) eggs, finely sprinkled with brown, in a brown thrasher's nest, on the ground (!!) under a barberry bush. 

The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost. 

The crickets, though it is everywhere an oppressively warm day (yesterday I had a fire !! ) and I am compelled to take off my thinnish coat, are heard, particularly amid the rocks at Lee's Cliff. They must love warmth. As if it were already autumn there. 

See that common snake Coluber eximius of De Kay, — checkered adder, etc., etc., — forty-one inches long. A rather light brown above, with large dark-brown, irregularly quadrangular blotches, margined with black, and similar small ones, on the sides; abdomen light salmon-white, — whitest toward the head, — checkered with quadrangular blotches; very light bluish-slate in some lights and dark-slate or black in others. 

I should think from Storer's description that his specimen had lost its proper colors in spirits. He describes not the colors of a living snake, but those which alcohol might impart to it. It is as if you were to describe the white man as very red in the face, having seen a drunkard only.

It would be worth the while to ask ourselves weekly, 

Is our life innocent enough? Do we live inhumanely, toward man or beast, in thought or act?

To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe. 

The least conscious and needless injury inflicted on any creature is to its extent a suicide. What peace — or life — can a murderer have?The inhumanity of science concerns me, as when I am tempted to kill a rare snake that I may ascertain its species. I feel that this is not the means of acquiring true knowledge.

As I sail down toward the Clamshell Hill about an hour before sunset, the water is smoothed like glass, though the breeze is as strong as before. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1854

The woodland quire will rather be diminished than increased henceforth. See April 25, 1854 ("I hear the woods filled with the hum of insects, as if my hearing were affected; and thus the summer's quire begins. The silent spaces have begun to be filled with notes of birds and insects and the peep and croak and snore of frogs,"); June 25, 1854 ("Through June the song of the birds is gradually growing fainter."); August 2, 1854 ("he woodland quire has steadily diminished in volume."): August 20, 1854 ("When the red-eye ceases generally, then I think is a crisis, — the woodland quire is dissolved. That, if I remember, was about a fortnight ago. The concert is over.")

Even this spring the arches of the stone bridge were completely concealed by the flood, and yet at midsummer I can sail under them without lowering my mast. See May 8, 1854 (“The water has fallen a foot or more, but I cannot get under the stone bridge, so haul over the road.”); May 10, 1854 ("I drag and push my boat over the road at Deacon Farrar's brook, carrying a roller with me. . . . I make haste back with a fair wind and umbrella for sail.”); April 17, 1856 (“I make haste to take down my sail at the bridges, but at the stone arches forgot my umbrella, which was un avoidably crushed in part.”); April 22, 1857 (“We have to roll our boat over the road at the stone bridge”)

The huckleberries . . . now generally in blossom, their rich clear red contrasting with the light-green leaves, . . . full of promise for the summer. . . .See May 27, 1855 ("How interesting the huckleberries now generally in blossom . . . — countless wholesome red bells, beneath the fresh yellow green foliage!”)

Blackberries. See  June 16, 1858 ("How agreeable and wholesome the fragrance of the low blackberry blossom, reminding me of all the rosaceous fruit bearing plants, so near and dear to our humanity.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost. See May 29,1854 (" Saw what I thought my night warbler sparrow-like with chestnut stripes on breast white or whitish below and about eyes and perhaps chestnut head."); May 19, 1858 (“Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low. ”According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird

The inhumanity of science concerns me, as when I am tempted to kill a rare snake that I may ascertain its species.  See April 26, 1857 ("I have the same objection to killing a snake that I have to the killing of any other animal, yet the most humane man that I know never omits to kill one.”) Cf. Wordsworth, The Tables Turned ("We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art . . . Come forth, and bring with you a heart that watches and receives.")

To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe. See  February 20, 1857 ("I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other. I am that rock by the pond-side.?) May 12, 1857 (“He is a brother poet, this small gray bird (or bard), whose muse inspires mine. . . .One with the rocks and with us.”)
 

May 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

To be serene and

successful we must be one

with the universe.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, We must be one with the universe

"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-540528

An eagle concealed, a ripple in the air.

April 23.

A kingfisher with his crack, — cr-r-r-rack. 

Rain yesterday and to-day; yet this morning the robin sings and the blackbirds and, in the yard, the tree sparrow, hyemalis, and song sparrow. A rain is sure to bring the tree sparrow and hyemalis to the gardens.

The first April showers are even fuller of promise and a certain moist serenity than the sunny days. How thickly the green blades are starting up amid the russet! The tinge of green is gradually increasing in the face of the russet earth.

April 23, 2022

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff on foot. See my white-headed eagle again, first at the same place, the outlet of Fair Haven Pond. It is a fine sight, he is mainly — i.e. his wings and body — so black against the sky, and they contrast so strongly with his white head and tail. He first flies low over the water; then rises gradually and circles westward toward White Pond. 

Lying on the ground with my glass, I watch him very easily, and by turns he gives me all possible views of himself. Now I see him edgewise like a black ripple in the air, his white head still as ever turned to earth, and now he turns his under side to me, and I behold the full breadth of his broad black wings, some what ragged at the edges. 

When I observe him edgewise I notice that the tips of his wings curve upward slightly.

He rises very high at last, till I almost lose him in the clouds, circling or rather looping along westward, high over river and wood and farm, effectually concealed in the sky. We who live this plodding life here below never know how many eagles fly over us.

I think I have got the worth of my glass now that it has revealed to me the white-headed eagle.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 23, 1854

A kingfisher with his crack, — cr-r-r-rack. See April 24, 1854 ("The kingfisher flies with a crack cr-r-r-ack and a limping or flitting flight from tree to tree before us, and finally, after a third of a mile, circles round to our rear. He sits rather low over the water. Now that he has come I suppose that the fishes on which he preys rise within reach.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Kingfisher

Rain yesterday and to-day . . . and, in the yard, the tree sparrow, hyemalis, and song sparrow. A rain is sure to bring the tree sparrow and hyemalis to the gardens. See April 23, 1859 (" Rain, rain.. . .The tree sparrows abundant and singing in the yard, but I have not noticed a hyemalis of late. The field sparrow sings in our yard in the rain") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, Birds in the Rain

The tinge of green is gradually increasing in the face of the russet earth. See April 14, 1854 ("There is a general tinge of green now discernible through the russet on the bared meadows and the hills, the green blades just peeping forth amid the withered ones."); April 28, 1854 ("Perhaps the greenness of the landscape may be said to begin fairly now . . . During the last half of April the earth acquires a distinct tinge of green, which finally prevails over the russet."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Colors of March-- Brown Season

The white-headed eagle.  See April 8, 1854  (“A perfectly white head and tail and broad or blackish wings. It sailed and circled along over the low cliff, and the crows dived at it in the field of my glass, and I saw it well.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White-headed Eagle

The worth of my glass. See March 13, 1854 ("Bought a telescope to-day for eight dollars.")

April 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 23

White-headed eagle

edgewise like a black ripple

concealed in the sky.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, White-headed eagle concealed in the sky.

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-540423

The pensive season of the day.

August 11.

Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle. 

Evening draws on, smoothing the waters and lengthening the shadows, now half an hour or more before sundown. 

Some fiat has gone forth and stilled the ripples of the lake; each sound and sight has acquired ineffable beauty.  Broad, shallow lakes of shadow stretch over the lower portions of the top of the woods. A thousand little cavities are filling with coolness. Hills and the least inequalities in the ground begin to cast an obvious shadow. The shadow of an elm stretches quite across the meadow. From far over the pond and woods I hear a farmer calling loudly to his cows, in the clear still air, "Ker, ker, ker, ker." 

What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening, this season of the day most favorable for reflection, after the insufferable heats and the bustle of the day are over and before the twilight?  The serene hour, the season of reflection! The pensive season.

The few sounds now heard, far or near, are delicious. Each sound has a broad and deep relief of silence. It is not more dusky and obscure, but clearer than before. The poet arouses himself and collects his thoughts.  

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 11, 1853

Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle. See. August 13, 1852 ("Pennyroyal abundant in bloom. I find it springing from the soil lodged on large rocks in sprout-lands, and gather a little bundle, which scents my pocket for many days.");  August 13, 1856 ("Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime? — The polygala roots, blue-curls, wormwood, pennyroyal, Solidago odora, rough sunflowers, horse-mint, etc., etc. Does not the season require this tonic?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aromatic Herbs

What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening. . . before the twilight? See August 31, 1852 ("This is the most glorious part of this day, the serenest, warmest, brightest part, and the most suggestive. . . .Evening is pensive. The serenity is far more remarkable to those who are on the water."); May 17, 1853 ("Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds — that partakes of the light of the day and the stillness of the night.") and A Book of the Seasons, The hour before sunset

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

Aug. 11.

 5 A. M. — Up North Branch.

 A considerable fog.

 The weeds still covered by the flood, so that we have no Bidens Beckii.

 B. chrysanthemoides just out.

 The small, dull, lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now hang over the water.

 The Amphicarpæa monoica appears not to have bloomed.

 Chickweed ( Stellaria media ) appears the most constant flower and most regardless of seasons.

 Cerastium blooms still.

 Button-bush and mikania now in prime, and cardinals.

 Lilies rather scarce (? ), but methinks less infested with insects.

 The river sprinkled with meadow-hay afloat.

 P. M. – To Conantum.

 This is by some considered the warmest day of the year thus far; but, though the weather is melting hot, yet the river having been deepened and cooled by the rains, we have none of those bathing days of July,’52.

 Yesterday or day before, I heard a strange note, me thought from somebody’s poultry, and looking out saw, I think a bittern, go squawking over the yard — from the river southwestward.

 A bittern, flying over, mingles its squawk with the cackling of poultry.

 Did I not hear a willet yesterday? At the Swamp Bridge Brook, flocks of cow troopials now about the cows.

 These and other blackbirds, flying in flocks now, make a great chattering, and also the bobolinks.

 What a humming of insects about the sweet-scented clethra blossoms, honey-bees and others, and flies and various kinds of wasps!

I see some naked viburnum berries red and some purple now.

 There are berries which men do not use, like choke-berries, which here in Hubbard’s Swamp grow in great profusion and blacken the bushes.

 How much richer we feel for this unused abundance and superfluity! Nature would not appear so rich, the pro fusion so rich, if we knew a use for everything.

 Plums and grapes, about which gardeners make such an ado, are in my opinion poor fruits compared with melons.

 The great rains have caused those masses of small green high blueberries, which commonly do not get ripe, to swell and ripen, so that their harvest fulfills the promise of their spring.

 I never saw so many, — even in swamps where a fortnight ago there was no promise.

 What a helpless creature a horse is out of his element or off his true ground!

Saw John Potter’s horse mired in his meadow, which has been softened by the rains.

 His small hoofs afford no support.

 He is furious, as if mad, and is liable to sprain himself seriously.

 His hoofs go through the crust like stakes, into the soft batter beneath, though the wheels go well enough.

 Woodbine is reddening in some places, and ivy too.

 Collinsonia just begun.

 Found — rather garrulous (his breath smelled of rum).

 Was complaining that his sons did not get married.

 He told me his age when he married (thirty-odd years ago), how his wife bore him eight children and 369 then died, and in what respect she proved herself a true woman, etc., etc.

 I saw that it was as impossible to speak of marriage to such a man — to the mass of men-as of poetry.

 Its advantages and disadvantages are not such as they have dreamed of.

 Their marriage is prose or worse.

 To be married at least should be the one poetical act of a man's life.

 If you fail in this respect, in what respect will you succeed?

The marriage which the mass of men comprehend is but little better than the marriage of the beasts.

 It would be just as fit for such a man to discourse to you on the love of flowers, thinking of them as hay for his oxen.

 The difference between men affects every phase of their lives, so that at last they cannot communicate with each other.

 An old man of average worth, who spoke with the downrightness and frankness of age, not exaggerating aught, said he was troubled about his water, etc., — altogether of the earth.

 

 Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height.

 I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle.

 Evening draws on, smoothing the waters and lengthening the shadows, now half an hour or more before sundown.

 What constitutes the charm of this hour of the day?

Is it the condensing of dews in the air just beginning, or the grateful increase of shadows in the landscape?

Some fiat has gone forth and stilled the ripples of the lake; each sound and sight has acquired ineffable beauty.

 How agreeable, when the sun shines at this angle, to stand on one side and look down on flourishing sprout-lands or copses, where the cool shade is mingled in greater proportion than before with the light!

 Broad, shallow lakes of shadow stretch over the lower portions of the top of the woods.

 A thousand little cavities are filling with coolness.

 Hills and the least inequalities in the ground begin to cast an obvious shadow.

 The shadow of an elm stretches quite across the meadow.

 I see pigeons (?) in numbers fly up from the stubble.

 I hear some young bluebird’s plaintive warble near me and some young hawks uttering a puling scream from time to time across the pond, to whom life is yet so novel.

 From far over the pond and woods I hear also a farmer calling loudly to his cows, in the clear still air, “ Ker, ker, ker, ker.”

 

 What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening, this severe and placid season of the day, most favorable for reflection, after the insufferable heats and the bustle of the day are over and before the dampness and twilight of evening!

 The serene hour, the Muses ’hour, the season of reflection!

 It is commonly desecrated by being made tea time.

 It begins perhaps with the very earliest condensation of moisture in the air, when the shadows of hills are first observed, and the breeze begins to go down, and birds begin again to sing.

 The pensive season.

 It is earlier than the “chaste eve” of the poet.

 Bats have not come forth.

 It is not twilight.

 There is no dew yet on the grass, and still less any early star in the heavens.

 It is the turning-point between afternoon and evening.

 The few sounds now heard, far or near, are delicious.

 It is not more dusky and obscure, but clearer than 371 before.

 The clearing of the air by condensation of mists more than balances the increase of shadows.

 Chaste eve is merely preparing with “dewy finger” to draw o’er all “the gradual dusky veil.

 ”Not yet“ the plough man homeward plods his weary way, ” nor owls nor beetles are abroad.

 It is a season somewhat earlier than is celebrated by the poets.

 There is not such a sense of lateness and approaching night as they describe.

 I mean when the first emissaries of Evening come to smooth the lakes and streams.

 The poet arouses himself and collects his thoughts.

 He postpones tea indefinitely.

 Thought has taken her siesta.

 Each sound has a broad and deep relief of silence

To be married should 

be the one poetical 

act of a man's life.

Sun warm on my back

July 21.

2 p. m. — Went, in pursuit of boys who had stolen my boat-seat, to Fair Haven. Plenty of berries there now, — large huckleberries, blueberries, and blackberries.

I am entering Fair Haven Pond. It is now perfectly still and smooth, like dark glass. The westering sun is very warm. 

There is no more beautiful part of the river than the entrance to this pond. He who passes over a lake at noon, when the waves run, little imagines its serene and placid beauty at evening, as little as he anticipates his own serenity. 

The sun is now warm on my back, and when I turn round I shade my face with my hands. Nature is beautiful only as a place where a life is to be lived. It is not beautiful to him who has not resolved on a beautiful life. 

It rapidly grows cool toward sunset. A damp, cool air is felt over the water, and I want a thick coat. 

Ten minutes before sunset I see large clear dewdrops at the tips, or half an inch below the tips, of the pontederia leaves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  July 21, 1853

He who passes over a lake at noon, when the waves run, little imagines its serene and placid beauty at evening, as little as he anticipates his own serenity. See July 21, 1852 (“The river is perfectly smooth, reflecting the golden sky and the red . . . At evening lakes and rivers become thus placid. Every dimple made by a fish or insect is betrayed.”); See also July 3, 1840 ("We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves."); August 31. 1852 ("The pond, so smooth and full of reflections after a dark and breezy day, is unexpectedly beautiful."); May 17, 1853 ("Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds — that partakes of the light of the day and the stillness of the night!”); August 11, 1853 ("What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening, this season of the day most favorable for reflection, after the insufferable heats and the bustle of the day are over and before the twilight? The serene hour, the season of reflection! The pensive season")

When I turn round I have to shade my face with my hands. See July 27, 1852 ("I turn round, and there shines the moon”); September 26, 1857 ("Coming home, the sun is intolerably warm on my left cheek . . . when I cover the reflection with my hand the heat is less intense.")

Ten minutes before sunset I see large clear dewdrops at the tips. . . of the pontederia leaves. See July 18, 1852 ("Just before sundown, the sun still inconveniently warm, we were surprised to observe on the uppermost point of each pontederia leaf a clear drop of dew already formed,"); July 12, 1860 ("Just after the sun is set I observe the dewdrops on the pontederia leaves . . .This is the only broad and thick leaf that rises above the water, and therefore it appears to be the only one that collects the dew thus early.")

July 21. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 21

July 21, 2013

Sun warm on my back

I turn round and shade my face –

a beautiful life.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Sun warm on my back

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-530721

Wonder, awe, innocence, serenity -- lightning.

June 27

June 27, 1852

See a very large white ash tree, three and a half feet in diameter, in front of the house which White formerly owned, under this hill, which was struck by lightning the 22d, about 4 P.M. . The lightning apparently struck the top of the tree and scorched the bark and leaves for ten or fifteen feet downward, then began to strip off the bark and enter the wood, making a ragged narrow furrow or crack, till, reaching one of the upper limbs, it apparently divided, descending on both sides and entering deeper and deeper into the wood. 

At the first general branching, it had got full possession of the tree in its centre and tossed off the main limbs butt foremost, making holes in the ground where they struck; and so it went down in the midst of the trunk to the earth, where it apparently exploded, rending tire trunk into six segments, whose tops, ten or twenty feet long, were rayed out on every side at an angle of about 30° from a perpendicular, leaving the ground bare directly under where the tree had stood, though they were still fastened to the earth by their roots.

The lightning appeared to have gone off through the roots, furrowing them as the branches, and through the earth, making a furrow like a plow, four or five rods in one direction, and in another passing through the cellar of the neighboring house, about thirty feet distant, scorching the tin milk-pans and throwing dirt into the milk, and coming out the back side of the house in a furrow, splitting some planks there. The main body of the tree was completely stripped of bark, which was cast in every direction two hundred feet; and large pieces of the inside of the tree, fifteen feet long, were hurled with tremendous force in various directions, one into the side of a shed, smashing it, another burying itself in a wood-pile. The heart of the tree lay by itself. 

Probably, a piece as large as a man's leg could not have been sawn out of the trunk which would not have had a crack in it, and much of it was very finely splintered. 

The windows in the house were broken and the inhabitants knocked down by the concussion. 

All this was accomplished in an instant by a kind of fire out of the heavens called lightning, or a thunderbolt, accompanied by a crashing sound. For what purpose? The ancients called it Jove's bolt, with which he punished the guilty, and we moderns understand it no better. If we trust our natural impressions, it is a manifestation of brutish force or vengeance, more or less tempered with justice . 

Why should trees be struck? Science assumes to show why the lightning strikes a tree, but it does not show us the moral why any better than our instincts do. Science answers, Non scio, I am ignorant. Science affirms too much. It is full of presumption. It is not enough to say because they are in the way. Men are probably nearer to the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science. 

All the phenomena of nature need be seen from the point of view of wonder and awe, like lightning; and, on the other hand, the lightning itself needs to be regarded with serenity, as the most familiar and innocent phenomena are.

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

All the phenomena of nature need be seen from the point of view of wonder and awe, like lightning. See August 21, 1852  ("A man killed by lightning would have a good answer ready in the next world to the question "How came you here?" which he need not hesitate to give."); December 26, 1853 (“I passed by the pitch pine that was struck by lightning. I was impressed with awe on looking up and seeing that broad, distinct spiral mark, more distinct even than when made eight years ago, as one might groove a walking-stick, — mark of an invisible and in tangible power, a thunderbolt, mark where a terrific and resistless bolt came down from heaven, out of the harmless sky, eight years ago. It seemed a sacred spot.”)

The unclouded mind

January 17

One day two young women — a Sunday — stopped at the door of my hut and asked for some water. 

I answered that I had no cold water but I would lend them a dipper. They never returned the dipper, and I had a right to suppose that they came to steal. They were a disgrace to their sex and to humanity. Pariahs of the moral world. Evil spirits that thirsted not for water but threw the dipper into the lake. Such as Dante saw. What the lake to them but liquid fire and brimstone? They will never know peace till they have returned the dipper. In all the worlds this is decreed.

In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. 

That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer. 

What is your thought like? 

That is the hue, that the purity, and transparency, and distance from earthly taint of my inmost mind. 

For whatever we see without is a symbol of something within, and that which is farthest off is the symbol of what is deepest within. The lover of contemplation, accordingly, will gaze much into the sky. 

Fair thoughts and a serene mind make fair days.

Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds.

As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there; some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable.

The world run to see the panorama, when there is a panorama in the sky which few go out to see.

"Evergreens" would be a good title for some of my things, — or " Gill-go-over-the-Ground," or " Winter-green," or " Checkerberry," or "Usnea Lichens," etc., etc. "Iter Canadense." . . . Methinks there might be a chapter, when I speak of hens in the thawy days and spring weather on the chips, called " Chickweed " or " Plantain."

It appears to me that at a very early age the mind of man, perhaps at the same time with his body, ceases to be elastic. His intellectual power becomes some thing defined and limited. He does not think expansively, as he would stretch himself in his growing days. What was flexible sap hardens into heart-wood, and there is no further change. In the season of youth, methinks, man is capable of intellectual effort and performance which surpass all rules and bounds; as the youth lays out his whole strength without fear or prudence and does not feel his limits. It is the transition from poetry to prose. The young man can run and leap; he has not learned exactly how far, he knows no limits. The grown man does not exceed his daily labor. He has no strength to waste.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 17, 1852

The necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. See December 25, 1858 ("How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! . . . In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour."); January 17, 1860 ("There was a splendid sunset. The northwest sky at first was what you may call a lattice sky,. . ., in which the clouds, which were uninterrupted overhead, were broken into long bars parallel to the horizon."); see also December 31, 1851 ("I have not enough valued and attended to the pure clarity and brilliancy of the winter skies."); 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. The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian. Windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. ");  January 14, 1852 ("I notice to-night, about sundown, that the clouds in the eastern horizon are the deepest indigo-blue of any I ever saw."); January 26, 1852 (" Would you see your mind, look at the sky."); and  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

Fair thoughts and a serene mind make fair days. As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. See  July 23, 1851 ("The mind is subject to moods, as the shadows of clouds pass over the earth."); December 27, 1851 ("The sky is always ready to answer to our moods."); January 26, 1852 (" Would you see your mind, look at the sky. Would you know your own moods, be weather-wise.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.

Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds. See December 11, 1854 ("That peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.”); December 14. 1851 ("There is a beautifully pure greenish-blue sky under the clouds now in the southwest just before sunset."); December 14, 1852 ("Ah, who can tell the serenity and clarity of a New England winter sunset?"); ; December 31, 1851 ("I have not enough valued and attended to the pure clarity and brilliancy of the winter skies."); January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, . . . is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset ") January 24, 1852 ("Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown."); July 23, 1852 ("As the light in the west fades, the sky there, seen between the clouds, has a singular clarity and serenity.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

January 17. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 17

The unclouded mind

serene pure ineffable –

like the western sky. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The unclouded mind

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520117

*****

In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky before sunset these winter days. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer.

 What is your thought like?

That is the hue, that the purity, and transparency, and distance from earthly taint of my inmost mind, for whatever we see without is a symbol of something within, and that which is farthest off is the symbol of what is deepest within.

 The lover of contemplation, accordingly, will gaze much into the sky.

 Fair thoughts and a serene mind make fair days.

 The rainbow is the symbol of the triumph which succeeds to a grief that has tried us to our advantage, so that at last we can smile through our tears.

 It is the aspect with which we come out of the house of mourning.

 We have found our relief in tears.

 As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind.

 Some see only clouds there; some, prodigies and portents ; some rarely look up at all ; their heads, like the brutes ', are directed toward earth.

 Some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable.

 The world run to see the panorama, when there is a panorama in the sky which few go out to see. . . .


Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds, for then there is wont to be a vapor more generally diffused, especially near the horizon, which, in cloudy days, is absorbed, as it were, and collected into masses ; and the vistas are clearer than the unobstructed cope of heaven. The endless variety in the forms and texture of the clouds! — some fine, some coarse grained. I saw to night overhead, stretching two thirds across the sky, what looked like the backbone, with portions of the ribs, of a fossil monster. Every form and creature is thus shadowed forth in vapor in the heavens.