It is highly important to invent a dress
which will enable us to be abroad
with impunity in the severest storms.
Henry Thoreau April 22, 1856
When it rains and blows,
keeping men indoors, then the
lover of Nature must forth.
A warm dripping rain
now heard on one's umbrella
as on a snug roof
a slow contentment
like turtles under their shells
so comfortable
abroad in a storm
we walk under clouds and mists
our thoughts all compact
we seem to hear the
ground a-soaking up the rain.
we, too, are revived.
April 4, 1853
I remember or
anticipate one of those
warm spring rain-storms
when the wind is south
the cladonia lichens
swollen and lusty
you wander wet to
the skin indefinitely
in a serene rain
sit on moss-clad rocks
and stumps sit long at a time
still and have your thoughts –
the part of you that
is wettest is fullest of
life like the lichens
and when the rain comes
thicker and faster you are
more comfortable
you can not go home –
you stay and sit in the rain
free as the sparrow
you glide along the
distant wood-side full of joy
and expectation
wind blows and warms you
the mist drives and clears your sight
eternal rain falls –
drip, drip, drip – sitting
there by the edge of the
wood that April day.
September 3. Walk often in drizzly weather, for then the small weeds (especially if they stand on bare ground), covered with rain-drops like beads, appear more beautiful than ever, -- the hypericums, for instance. They are equally beautiful when covered with dew, fresh and adorned, almost spirited away, in a robe of dewdrops. September 3, 1851
February 28. To-day it snows again, covering the ground. To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin, and we be as it were turned inside out to it, and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten, - so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men. February 28, 1852
April 2. And soon we saw the dimples of drops on the surface . The clouds, the showers, and the breaking away now in the west, all belong to the summer side of the year and remind me of long-past days. We land in a steady rain and walk inland by R. Rice's barn, regardless of the storm, toward White Pond. At last the drops fall wider apart, and we pause in a sandy field near the Great Road of the Corner, where it was agreeably retired and sandy, drinking up the rain. The rain was soothing, so still and sober, gently beating against and amusing our thoughts, swelling the brooks. The robin now peeps with scared note in the heavy overcast air, among the apple trees. The hour is favorable to thought April 2, 1852
April 4. A warm, dripping rain, heard on one's umbrella as on a snug roof, and on the leaves without, suggests comfort. We go abroad with a slow but sure contentment, like turtles under their shells. We never feel so comfortable as when we are abroad in a storm with satisfaction. Our comfort is positive then. We are all compact, and our thoughts collected. We walk under the clouds and mists as under a roof. Now we seem to hear the ground a-soaking up the rain, and not falling ineffectually on a frozen surface. We, too, are penetrated and revived by it. . . . A rainy day is to the walker in solitude and retirement like the night. Few travellers are about, and they half hidden under umbrellas and confined to the highways. One's thoughts run in a different channel from usual. It is somewhat like the dark day; it is a light night. April 4, 1853
April 19. To see the larger and wilder birds, you must go forth in the great storms like this.. . . To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth. Then returns Nature to her wild estate. April 19, 1852
April 20. Some storms have much more wet in them than others though they look the same to one in the house, and you cannot walk half an hour without being wet through, while in the others you may keep pretty dry a whole afternoon. April 20, 1852
May 13. The fields are green now, and all the expanding leaves and flower-buds are much more beautiful in the rain, - covered with clear drops . . .They who do not walk in the woods in the rain never behold them in their freshest, most radiant and blooming beauty. May 13, 1852
July 1. It is more agreeable walking this cloudy day, with a few harmless sun-showers, than it would be in a glaring sunny day. July 1, 1852
August 4. Have had a gentle rain, and now with a lowering sky, but still I hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall. The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this. It has allayed all excitement. . . . A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods is in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm at this season, when the air and water are perfectly still, but the sky still overcast; first, because the lake is very smooth at such a time, second, as the atmosphere is so shallow and contracted, being low-roofed with clouds, the lake as a lower heaven is much larger in proportion to it. August 4, 1852
August 7. It is worth the while to walk in wet weather; the earth and leaves are strewn with pearls. When I came forth it was cloudy and from time to time drizzling weather, but remarkably still (and warm enough), soothing and inducing reflection. The river is dark and smooth these days, reflecting no brightness but dark clouds, and the goldfinch is heard twittering over; though presently a thicker mist or mizzle falls, and you are prepared for rain. The river and brooks look late and cool. The stillness and the shade enable you to collect and concentrate your thoughts. August 7, 1853
June 14. It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under, sitting on the paddles, and so are quite dry while our friends thought we were being wet to our skins. But we have as good a roof as they. It is very pleasant to lie there half an hour close to the edge of the water and see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble; the rain seemed much heavier for it. June 14, 1855
November 7. Another drizzling day, — as fine a mist as can fall. I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon; my walk or voyage is more suggestive and profitable than in bright weather. The view is contracted by the misty rain, the water is perfectly smooth, and the stillness is favorable to reflection. I am more open to impressions, more sensitive (not calloused or indurated by sun and wind), as if in a chamber still. My thoughts are concentrated; I am all compact. The solitude is real, too, for the weather keeps other men at home. This mist is like a roof and walls over and around, and I walk with a domestic feeling. The sound of a wagon going over an unseen bridge is louder than ever, and so of other sounds. I am compelled to look at near objects. All things have a soothing effect; the very clouds and mists brood over me. My power of observation and contemplation is much increased. My attention does not wander. The world and my life are simplified. November 7, 1855
December 15. The snow turns to rain, and this afternoon I walk in it down the railroad and through the woods. The low grass and weeds, bent down with a myriad little crystalline drops, ready to be frozen perhaps, are very interesting, but wet my feet through very soon. A steady but gentle, warm rain. December 15, 1855
December 16. Steady, gentle, warm rain all the forenoon, and mist and mizzling in the afternoon, when I go round by Abel Hosmer’s and back by the railroad. The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable, like pictures, and makes the houses more interesting, revealing but one at a time. December 16, 1855
May 10. To Walden in rain . . . I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather, for now I see and get near to large birds. May 10, 1856
December 25. Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary. December 25, 1856
January 26. I like to sit still under my umbrella and meditate in the woods in this warm rain. January 26, 1858
January 27. It is so mild and moist as I saunter along by the wall east of the Hill that I remember, or anticipate, one of those warm rain-storms in the spring, when the earth is just laid bare, the wind is south, and the cladonia lichens are swollen and lusty with moisture, your foot sinking into them and pressing the water out as from a sponge, and the sandy places also are drinking it in. You wander indefinitely in a beaded coat, wet to the skin of your legs, sit on moss-clad rocks and stumps, and hear the lisping of migrating sparrows flitting amid the shrub oaks, sit long at a time, still, and have your thoughts. A rain which is as serene as fair weather, suggesting fairer weather than was ever seen. You could hug the clods that defile you. You feel the fertilizing influence of the rain in your mind. The part of you that is wettest is fullest of life, like the lichens . . . Steadily the eternal rain falls, — drip, drip, drip, – the mist drives and clears your sight, the wind blows and warms you, sitting on that sandy upland by the edge of the wood that April day. January 27, 1858.
May 17. It rains gently from time to time as I walk . . . This rain is good for thought. It is especially agreeable to me as I enter the wood and hear the soothing dripping on the leaves. It domiciliates me in nature. The woods are the more like a house for the rain; the few slight noises sound more hollow in them; the birds hop nearer; the very trees seem still and pensive. The clouds are but a higher roof. The clouds and rain confine me to near objects, the surface of the earth and the trees . . .You are more than paid for a wet coat and feet, not only by the exhilaration that the fertile moist air imparts, but by the increased fragrance and more gem-like character of expanding buds and leafets in the rain. All vegetation is now fuller of life and expression, some what like lichens in wet weather, and the grass. May 17, 1858
March 8. Such a day as this, I resort where the partridges, etc., do — to the bare ground and the sheltered sides of woods and hills — and there explore the moist ground for the radical leaves of plants, while the storm blows overhead, and I forget how the time is passing. If the weather is thick and stormy enough, if there is a good chance to be cold and wet and uncomfortable, in other words to feel weather-beaten, you may consume the afternoon to advantage thus browsing along the edge of some near wood which would scarcely detain you at all in fair weather, and you will be as far away there as at the end of your longest fair-weather walk, and come home as if from an adventure. There is no better fence to put between you and the village than a storm into which the villagers do not venture out. March 8, 1859
March 15. Rainy day and southerly wind. I come home in the evening through a very heavy rain after two brilliant rainbows at sunset, the first of the year. March 15. 1859
April 3. It does not rain hard to-day, but mizzles, with considerable wind, and your clothes are finely bedewed with it even under an umbrella. The rain-drops hanging regularly under each twig of the birches, so full of light, are a very pretty sight as you look forth through the mizzle from under your umbrella. In a hard rain they do not lodge and collect thus. April 3, 1859
June 8. Within a day or two has begun that season of summer when you see afternoon showers, maybe with thunder, or the threat of them, dark in the horizon, and are uncertain whether to venture far away or without an umbrella. June 8, 1860
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Walking in the Rain
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
