A Book of the Seasons: July 20 (walking at night and by moonlight, the first star, fireflies, starlight and last traces of daylight, thunderstorms)

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 20.

The mountains look like

waves on a blue ocean tossed

up by a stiff gale.

July 20, 1851

The first whip-poor-will 

sings in the dark pitch pine wood 

on Bear Garden Hill. 

July 20, 1852

We see the first star 

and know not if we might have

seen it earlier.

July 20, 1852

Old moon visible

in the arms of the crescent

if we do not look.

July 20, 1852

As we look, a bird

flies across the disk of the

midsummer night's moon.

July 20 1853

Darting forked lightning

and muttering thunder-cloud

drive me home again.

July 20, 1854

Riding in the cars

is now like sitting in the

flue of a chimney.

July 20, 1857

July 20, 2020

A thunder-shower in the night. The clap that wakes me is as if some one is moving lumber in an upper apartment, some vast hollow hall, tumbling it down and dragging it over the floor; and ever and anon the lightning fills the damp air with light. July 20, 1851

A very hot day, a bathing day. Warm days about this. Corn in blossom these days. July 20, 1854

The mountains look like waves on a blue ocean tossed up by a stiff gale. July 20, 1851

A muttering thunder-cloud in northwest gradually rising and with its advanced guard hiding in the sun and now and then darting forked lightning.  July 20, 1854

Caught a middle-sized copper-colored devil's-needle (with darker spots on wings), sluggish, on a grass stem, with many dark-colored elliptical eggs packed closely to outside, under its breast. July 20, 1856. 

The clouds, as usual, are arranged with reference to the sunset. The sun is gone. An amber light and golden glow. The horns of the moon only three or four days old look very sharp, still cloud like, in the midst of a blue space, prepared to shine a brief half-hour before it sets. July 20, 1852

The redness now begins to fade on eastern clouds, and the western cloudlets glow with burnished copper alloyed with gold. July 20, 1852

Then the cloudlets in the west turn rapidly dark, the shadow of night advances in the east, and the first stars become visible. 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. July 20, 1852

We have come round the east side of the hill to see the moon from amid the trees. July 20, 1852 .

The moon was at first eclipsed by a vast black bank of cloud in the east horizon, which seemed to rise faster than it, and threatened to obscure it all the night. July 20, 1853

This is the midsummer night's moon.  July 20, 1853

As we looked, a bird flew across the disk of the moon. July 20, 1853 

Saw two skunks carrying their tails about some rocks. Singular that, of all the animated creation, chiefly these skunks should be abroad in this moonlight.  July 20, 1853

There is a mist very generally dispersed, which gives a certain mellowness to the light, a wavingness apparently, a creaminess. Yet the light of the moon is a cold, almost frosty light, white on the ground.  July 20, 1853

Night is seen settling down with mists on Fair Haven Bay. The stars are few and distant; the fireflies fewer still. July 20, 1852

There are a few fireflies about. Green, their light looks sometimes, and crickets are heard. July 20, 1853.

There is a second glow on the few low western cloudlets, when we thought the sun had bid us a final adieu. - Those small clouds, the rearmost guard of day, which were wholly dark, are again lit up for a moment with a dull-yellowish glow and again darken. July 20, 1852

You are pretty sure also to hear some human music, vocal or instrumental, far or near. July 20, 1853

Now the first whip-poor-will sings hollowly in the dark pitch pine wood on Bear Garden Hill. July 20, 1852.

And now, when we had thought the day birds gone to roost, the wood thrush takes up the strain. July 20, 1852.

And now the evening redness deepens till all the west or northwest horizon is red; as if . . .as if the Artist of the world had mixed his red paints on the edge of the inverted saucer of the sky. An exhilarating, cheering redness, most wholesome. July 20, 1852

The crescent moon, meanwhile, grows more silvery, and, as it sinks in the west, more yellowish, and the outline of the old moon in its arms is visible if you do not look directly at it. July 20, 1852

 Some dusky redness lasts almost till the last traces of daylight disappear, about 10 o'clock, the same time the moon goes down. July 20, 1852

Delayed by fog in night off coast of Maine. July 20, 1857

July 20, 2018

***

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Devil's-needle

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, As the seasons revolve.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

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

July 24, 2014
***** 

May 8, 1852 (“Starlight marks conveniently a stage in the evening, i. e. when the first star can be seen.”)

May 29, 1857 ("The crashing thunder sounds like the overhauling of lumber on heaven's loft.")

June 17, 1852 ("The thunder sounds like moving a pile of boards in the attic."); 

June 20, 1853 (“ The moon full. . . . Saw a little skunk coming up the river-bank in the woods at the White Oak.”)

June 28,1852 ("Now it is starlight; perhaps that dark cloud in the west has concealed the evening star before . . . Starlight! That would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise. That is an epoch, when the last traces of daylight have disappeared and the night (nox) has fairly set in.”) 

June 30, 1852 (“It is starlight about half an hour after sunset to-night; i. e. the first stars appear”)

July 12, 1851("Now at least the moon is full, and I walk alone, which is best by night, if not by day always.")

 July 12, 1851 ("I see a skunk on Bear Garden Hill stealing noiselessly away from me, while the moon shines over the pitch pines")

July 12, 1852 (“Now, a quarter after nine, as I walk along the river-bank, long after starlight, and perhaps an hour or more after sunset, I see some of those high-pillared clouds of the day, in the southwest, still reflecting a downy light from the regions of day, they are so high.”)

July 14, 1851 ("If I take the same walk by moonlight an hour later or earlier in the evening, it is as good as a different one.")

July 16, 1850  ("Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season. Instead of the sun, there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood thrush, there is the whip-poor-will; instead of butterflies, fireflies, winged sparks of fire!")

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

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.")

August 5, 1851 ("I hear now from Bear Garden Hill — I rarely walk by moonlight without hearing — the sound of a flute, or a horn, or a human voice")
August 8, 1851 (“The moon has not yet quite filled her horns”)
August 8, 1851 ("Starlight! that would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise.”)

December 23, 1851 (“I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.”)

December 25, 1858 ("Unless you watch it, you do not know when the sun goes down.")

July 20, 2012

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

July 19 <<<<<<   July 20   >>>>>> July 21

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 20

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

  

The midsummer night's moon.

July 20.

 

July 20, 2012

To Nawshawtuct at moonrise with Sophia, by boat.

Moon apparently fulled yesterday.

A low mist in crusts the meadow, -- not so perceptible when we are on the water. Now we row through a thin low mist about as high as one's head, now we come to a place where there is no mist on the river or meadow, apparently where a slight wind stirs.

The gentle susurrus from the leaves of the trees on shore is very enlivening, as if Nature were freshening, awakening to some enterprise. There is but little wind, but its sound, incessantly stirring the leaves at a little distance along the shore, heard not seen, is very inspiriting. It is like an everlasting dawn or awakening of nature to some great purpose.

As we go up the hill we smell the sweet briar.

The trees are now heavy, dark masses without tracery, not as in spring or early in June; but I forgot to say that the moon was at first eclipsed by a vast black bank of cloud in the east horizon, which seemed to rise faster than it, and threatened to obscure it all the night.

But suddenly she rose above it, and when, a few moments after, we thought to look again for the threatening cloud-bank, it had vanished, or a mere filmy outline could be faintly traced beneath her.

It was the eclipse of her light behind it that made this evil look so huge and threatening, but now she had triumphed over it and eclipsed it with her light.

It had vanished, like an ugly dream.

So is it ever with evils triumphed over, which we have put behind us.

What was at first a huge dark cloud in the east which threatened to eclipse the moon the livelong night is now suddenly become a filmy vapor, not easy to be detected in the sky, lit by her rays.

She comes on thus, magnifying her dangers by her light, at first displaying, revealing them in all their hugeness and blackness, exaggerating, then casting them behind her into the light concealed.

She goes on her way triumphing through the clear sky like a moon which was threatened by dark clouds at her rising but rose above them. That black, impenetrable bank which threatened to be the ruin of all our hopes is now a filmy dash of vapor with a faint-purplish tinge, far in the orient sky.

From the hilltop we see a few distant lights in farmhouses down below, hard to tell where they are, yet better revealing where they are than the sun does.  But cottage lights are not conspicuous now as in the autumn.

As we looked, a bird flew across the disk of the moon.

Saw two skunks carrying their tails about some rocks. Singular that, of all the animated creation, chiefly these skunks should be abroad in this moonlight.

This is the midsummer night's moon.

We have come round the east side of the hill to see the moon from amid the trees. I like best to see its light falling far in amid the trees and along the ground before me, while itself is hidden behind them or one side.

It is cool, methinks with a peculiar coolness, as it were from the luxuriance of the foliage, as never in June. At any rate we have had no such sultry nights this month as in June.

There is a greater contrast between night and day now, reminding me that even in Hindostan they freeze ice in shallow vessels at night in summer (?).

There is a mist very generally dispersed, which gives a certain mellowness to the light, a wavingness apparently, a creaminess.

Yet the light of the moon is a cold, almost frosty light, white on the ground.

There are a few fireflies about. Green, their light looks sometimes, and crickets are heard.

You are pretty sure also to hear some human music, vocal or instrumental, far or near.

The masses of the trees and bushes would be called black, if our knowledge that they are leaves did not make us call them dark - green.

Here is the Pycnanthemum lanceolatum near the boat's place, which I scent in the dark. It has been out some days, for some flowers are quite withered.

I hear from the copses or bushes along the shore, returning, a faint everlasting fine song from some small cricket, or rather locust, which it required the stillness of night to reveal.

A bat hovers about us.

How oily smooth the water in this moonlight! And the apparent depth where stars are reflected frightens Sophia.

These Yankee houses and gardens seen rising beyond this oily moonlit water, on whose surface the circling insects are like sparks of fire, are like Italian dwellings on the shores of Italian lakes.

When we have left the boat and the river, we are surprised, looking back from the bank, to see that the water is wholly concealed under a white mist, though it was scarcely perceptible when we were in its midst.

The few bullfrogs are the chief music.

I do not know but walnuts are peculiarly handsome by moonlight, -- seeing the moon rising through them, and the form of their leaves.

I felt some nuts. They have already their size and that bracing, aromatic scent.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1853

The moon was at first eclipsed by a vast black bank of cloud in the east horizon, which threatened to obscure it all the night  See June 1, 1852 ("The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights")

Singular that, of all the animated creation, chiefly these skunks should be abroad in this moonlight. See June 20, 1853 (“ The moon full. . . . Saw a little skunk coming up the river-bank in the woods at the White Oak.”); July 12, 1851 ("I see a skunk on Bear Garden Hill stealing noiselessly away from me, while the moon shines over the pitch pines")

There are a few fireflies about. See July 20, 1852 ("The stars are few and distant; the fireflies fewer still.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies

You are pretty sure also to hear some human music, vocal or instrumental, far or near. See June 14, 1851 ("How sweet and encouraging it is to hear the sound of some artificial music from the midst of woods or from the top of a hill at night, borne on the breeze from some distant farmhouse, — the human voice or a flute!"); July 12, 1851 ("I hear a human voice,"); August 5, 1851 ("I hear now from Bear Garden Hill — I rarely walk by moonlight without hearing — the sound of a flute, or a horn, or a human voice")

A Book of the Seasons: July 19 (morning fogs, smothering heat, butterflies and bees, raspberries, blackberries, cinnamon ferns, first signs of autumn as the seasons revolve)

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 19

First the St. John's-wort 

and now the goldenrod come 

to admonish us. 

July 19, 1851 

Yesterday was spring,

to-morrow will be autumn.

Where is the summer?

July 19, 1851

The more smothering

furnace-like heats beginning

and the locust days.

July 19, 1854

July 19, 2018

The more smothering, furnace-like heats are beginning, and the locust days. July 19, 1854

This morning a fog and cool. July 19, 1853

There is a threatening cloud in the southwest. July 19, 1851

The wind rises more and more. The river and the pond are blacker than the threatening cloud in the south. July 19, 1851

The thunder mutters in the distance. The surface of the water is slightly rippled. The woods roar. But still no rain. July 19, 1851

A very dark cloud came up from the west this forenoon, - a dark curtain rolled up, with a grayish light beneath it, . . . and for a few minutes rain fell in a deluge, the gutters ran full, and there was a whirlpool at every grating. July 19, 1860

Here is the Canada thistle in bloom, visited by butterflies and bees.  July 19, 1851

The butterflies have swarmed within these few days, especially about the milkweeds. July 19, 1851

Fleets of yellow butterflies on road. July 19, 1856

Examined painted tortoise eggs of June 10th. . . . The eggs are large and rather pointed, methinks at the larger end. The young are half developed. July 19, 1856.

I dug up three or four nests of the Emys insculpta and Sternothcerus odoratus . . .  This great pile of dry sand in which the turtles now lay was recently fine particles swept down the swollen river. July 19, 1859. 

It is remarkable how the river, while it may be encroaching on the bank on one side, preserves its ordinary breadth by filling up the other side. July 19, 1859

In Moore's Swamp I pluck cool, though not very sweet, large red raspberries in the shade. July 19, 1854. 

Ripe blackberries are multiplying. July 19, 1851.

Apparently a catbird's nest in a shrub oak, lined with root-fibres, with three green-blue eggs. July 19, 1854. 

In the maple swamp at Hubbard's Close, the great cinnamon ferns are very handsome now in tufts, falling over in handsome curves on every side. Some are a foot wide and raised up six feet long. July 19, 1854

The chestnuts on Pine Hill being in blossom reveals the rounded tops of the trees; separates them, and makes a richer and more varied scene. July 19, 1852

I am surprised to see at Walden a single Aster patens with a dozen flowers fully open a day or more. July 19, 1854

The early meadow aster out. July 19, 1855

It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear-leaved) whose red pods are noticed now. July 19, 1856

Beyond the bridge there is a goldenrod partially blossomed. July 19, 1851

 First came the St. John's-wort and now the goldenrod to admonish us.  July 19, 1851

 I hear a cricket, too, under the blackberry vines, singing as in the fall.  July 19, 1851

Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then? July 19, 1851

To-day I met with the first orange flower of autumn. [T]his is the fruit of a dog-day sun. The year has but just produced it. July 19, 1851

Young bobolinks; one of the first autumnalish notes.  July 19, 1855.

Young song sparrows flutter about. June 19, 1855

A wood thrush to-night. Veery within two or three days . July 19, 1854. 

This rapid revolution of nature, even of nature in me, why should it hurry me? July 19, 1851

Methinks my seasons revolve more slowly than those of nature. July 19, 1851

If you take one side of a rock, and your companion another, it is enough to separate you sometimes for the rest of the ascent. July 19, 1858

*** 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Locust Days, Dogdayish Days

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Wood Turtlw (Emys insculpta)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Catbird nests

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Veery

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Bees

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Butterflies

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Milkweed

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, As the seasons revolve.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

July

January 24, 1858 ("Between winter and summer there is, to my mind, an immeasurable interval.")
June 6, 1857 ("Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration.")
July 2, 1854("The spring now seems far behind, yet I do not remember the interval.")
July 5, 1852 ("We have become accustomed to the summer. It has acquired a certain eternity")

July 14, 1852 ("See to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies in compact assembly in the road”)
July 14, 1860 ("Perceive now the light-colored tops of chestnuts in bloom.")

July 15, 1854 ("There are many butterflies, yellow and red, about the Asclepias incarnata now.")

July 15, 1854 (“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. ”)
July 15, 1854 ("The stems and leaves of various asters and golden-rods, which ere long will reign along the way, begin to be conspicuous.")
July 15, 1859 ("Raspberries, in one swamp, are quite abundant and apparently at their height.")

July 16, 1851 ("I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed")

July 16, 1851 ("St.John's-wort, one of the first of yellow flowers, begins to shine along the roadside.")

July 16, 1851 ("It is an air this afternoon that makes you indifferent to all things, - perfect summer. . . You know not heat nor cold. What season of the year is this?")

July 17, 1852 ("I pick raspberries dripping with rain beyond Sleepy Hollow.")
July 17, 1856 ("Going up the hillside . . .  am surprised to see great plump ripe low blackberries. How important their acid (as well as currants) this warm weather!")

July 17, 1856 (“A very warm afternoon. Thermometer at 97° at the Hosmer Desert. I hear the early locust.”)

July 17, 1856 ("It is 5 p. m. The wood thrush begins to sing.")

July 18, 1851 ("I first hear the locust sing, so dry and piercing, by the side of the pine woods in the heat of the day.”)

July 18, 1852 (" Thus by a natural law a river, instead of flowing straight through its meadows, meanders from side to side and fertilizes this side or that. . . The river has its active and its passive side, its right and left breast.")
July 18, 1854 ("Methinks the asters and goldenrods begin, like the early ripening leaves, with midsummer heats.")

July 20, 1854 ("A muttering thunder-cloud in northwest gradually rising and with its advanced guard hiding in the sun and now and then darting forked lightning. The wind rising ominously also drives me home again.")

July 22, 1851 ("The season of morning fogs has arrived. . . .These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog.")

July 22, 1854 ("Fogs almost every morning now.")

July 24, 1853 ("The small linear leaved hypericum (H. Canadense) shows red capsules.") 

July 24, 1852("When the first crop of grass is off, and the aftermath springs, the year has passed its culmination.")

July 26, 1853 ("I notice to-day the first purplish aster near the brook beyond Hubbard's Grove. I mark again the sound of crickets or locusts about this time when the first asters open . . .  This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!")

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

July 28, 1854 (“Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month  . . . 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.”)

August 4, 1854 ("It is already fall in low swampy woods where the cinnamon fern prevails. There are the sight and scent of beginning decay.")

August 5, 1854 ("It is one long acclivity from winter to midsummer and another long declivity from midsummer to winter.")

August 19, 1851 ("If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it.")

The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve

and therefore Nature rests no longer 

at her culminating point

 than at any other.

   August 19, 1851  

September 17, 1839  ("Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace. The bud swells imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as though the short spring days were an eternity. Why, then, should man hasten as if anything less than eternity were allotted for the least deed? The wise man is restful, never restless or impatient. He each moment abides there where he is, as some walkers actually rest the whole body at each step"

December 5, 1859 ("Suddenly we have passed from Indian summer to winter.")

December 7, 1856 ("The winters come now as fast as snowflakes. It was summer, and now again it is winter").

July 19, 2018

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

July 18< <<<<< July 19. >>>>> July 20

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 19

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/HDT19July

The chestnuts on Pine Hill in blossom.

July 19.


P. M.--R. W. E.'s cliff.


Phytolacca decandra, poke, in blossom.

The Cerasus pumila ripe.

The chestnuts on Pine Hill being in blossom reveals the rounded tops of the trees; separates them, and makes a richer and more varied scene.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 19, 1852

The Cerasus pumila ripe. See July 28, 1856 ("Sand cherry ripe. The fruit droops in umble-like clusters, two to four peduncles together, on each side the axil of a branchlet or a leaf.") See also May 22, 1855 ("Cerasus pumila in full bloom.")

The chestnuts on Pine Hill being in blossom. See July 14, 1860 ("Perceive now the light-colored tops of chestnuts in bloom.") See also October 19, 1855 ("To Pine Hill for chestnuts."); October 20, 1852 (“Picking chestnuts on Pine Hill."); October 22, 1852 ("Looking over the forest on Pine Hill, I can hardly tell which trees are lit up by the sunshine and which are the yellow chestnut-tops."); October 22, 1857("Chestnut trees are almost bare. Now is just the time for chestnuts."); October 23, 1855 ("Now is the time for chestnuts. A stone cast against the trees shakes them down in showers upon one’s head and shoulders."); October 24, 1857 ("I hear the dull thump of heavy stones against the trees from far through the rustling wood, where boys are ranging for nuts. ")