I remember only with a pang the past spring and summer thus far. I have not been an early riser. Society seems to have invaded and overrun me. I have drank tea and coffee and made myself cheap and vulgar. My days have been all noontides, without sacred mornings and evenings. I desire to rise early henceforth, to associate with those whose influence is elevating, to have such dreams and waking thoughts that my diet may not be indifferent to me.
Photo: August 13, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire
There is an early redness in the east which I was not prepared for, changing to amber or saffron, with clouds beneath in the horizon and also above this clear streak.
The birds utter a few languid and yawning notes, as if they had not left their perches, so sensible to light to wake so soon, —a faint peeping sound from I know not what kind, a slight, innocent, half-awake sound, like the sounds which a quiet housewife makes in the earliest dawn. Nature preserves her innocence like a beautiful child. I hear a wood thrush even now, long before sunrise, as in the heat of the day. And the pewee and the catbird and the vireo, red-eyed? I do not hear —or do not mind, perchance—the crickets now. Now whip-poor-wills commence to sing in earnest, considerably after the wood thrush. The wood thrush, that beautiful singer, inviting the day once more to enter his pine woods. (So you may hear the wood thrush and whip-poor-will at the same time.) Now go by two whip-poor-wills, in haste seeking some coverts from the eye of day. And the bats are flying about on the edge of the wood, improving the last moments of their day in catching insects. The moon appears at length, not yet as a cloud, but with a frozen light, ominous of her fate. The early cars sound like a wind in the woods. The chewinks make a business now of waking each other up with their low yorrick in the neighboring low copse. The sun would have shown before but for the cloud. Now, on his rising, not the clear sky, but the cheeks of the clouds high and wide, are tinged with red, which, like the sky before, turns gradually to saffron and then to the white light of day.
Photos: August 12, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH
What shall we name this season–– This very late afternoon––or very early evening? This severe & placid season of the day most favorable for reflection––after the insufferable heats and the bustle of the day are over––& before the dampness & twilight of the 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.–– & the breezes begin to go down––& 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––& still less any early star in the heavens. It is the turning point between afternoon & evening. The few sounds now heard far or near––are delicious. It is not more dusky & obscure, but clearer than before–– The clearing of the air by condensation of mists more than balances the increase of shadows. Chaste Eve is merely preparing with “dewy fingers” to draw o’re all “the gradual dusky veil.” Not yet “The ploughman 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 & 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 his siesta.
Each sound has a broad & deep relief of silence.
Photo: August 11, 2016 at Kiah Pond, Sandwich, New Hampshire
I go across lots like a hunting dog. With what tireless energy and abandonment they dash through the brush and up the sides of hills ! I meet two white foxhounds, led by an old red one. How full of it they are! How their tails work ! They are not tied to paths; they burst forth from the thickest shrub oak lot, and immediately dive into another as the fox did.
There are more varieties of blackberries between the low and the high than I take notice of. Vide that kind in the Well Meadow Field.
The fine (early sedge?) grass in the frosty hollows about Walden (where no bushes have sprung up) looks like an unkempt head.
Vernonia, how long?
Photo: August 10, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH
…history fluctuates as the face of the landscape from morning to evening. What is of moment in it is its hue and color. Time hides no treasures; we want not its then, but its now.
Photo: August 9, 2015 on the Sandwich Notch Road, White Mountain National Forest, Sandwich, New Hampshire
The air is warmer than the rocks now. It is perfectly warm & I am tempted to stay out all night & observe each phenomenon of the night until day dawns. But if I should do so, I should not wonder if the town were raised to hunt me up. Sitting on the door step of Conant–house–at 9 o clock I hear a pear drop–how few of all the apples that fall do we hear fall.
I could lie out here on this pinnacle rock all night without cold–I hear a horse sneeze? from time to time in his pasture–He sees me & knows me to be a man–though I do not see him.
To lie here on your back with nothing between your eye & the stars–nothing but space–they your nearest neighbors on that side–be they strange or be they tame–be they other worlds or merely ornaments to this–Who could ever go to sleep under these circumstances.
I hear the 9 o’clock bell ringing in Bedford–an unexpectedly musical sound that of a bell in the horizon always is–Pleasantly sounds the voice of one village to another. It is sweet as it is rare. Since I sat here a bright star has gone behind the stem of a tree–proving that my machine is moving–I hear a solitary whippoorwill–& a bull frog on the river fewer sounds than in spring.
Photo: August 8, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH
I love to follow up the course of the brook & see the cardinal flowers which stand in its midst above the rocks––their brilliant scarlet the more interesting in this open but dark cellar like wood––the small purple fringed orchises with the long dense spikes––all flower––for that is often all that is seen above the leaves of other plants–– Is not this the last flower of this peculiar flower kind; (i.e. all flower & color––the leaves subordinated)?
Photos: August 6, 2018 along the Red Hill River, Sandwich, New Hampshire
The best show of lilies is on the west side of the bay, in Cyrus Hosmer’s meadow, above the willow- row. Many of them are not open at 10 o’clock a. m. I noticed one with the sepals perfectly spread flat on the water, but the petals still held together in a sharp cone, being held by the concave, slightly hooked points. Touching this with an oar, it opens quickly with a spring. The same with many others, whose sepals were less spread. Under the influence of the light and warmth, the petals elevate or expand themselves in the middle, becoming more and more convex, till at last, being released at their overlapping points, they spring open and quickly spread themselves equally, revealing their yellow stamens. How satisfactory is the fragrance of this flower! It is the emblem of purity. It reminds me of a young country maiden. It is just so simple and unproved. Wholesome as the odor of the cow. It is not a highly refined odor, but merely a fresh youthful morning sweetness. It is merely the unalloyed sweetness of the earth and the water; a fair opportunity and field for life; like its petals, uncolored by any experience; a simple maiden on her way to school, her face surrounded by a white ruff. But how quickly it becomes the prey of insects.
Photo: August 5, 2018 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire
How much of beauty–of color as well as form–on which our eyes daily rest goes unperceived by us! No one but a botanist is likely to perceive nicely the different shades of green which the open surface of the earth is clothed–not even a landscape painter if he does not know the species of sedges and grasses which paint it.
August 1, 2009 at Cook Intervale, Sandwich, New Hampshire
As I look out through the woods westward there, I see, sleeping and gleaming through the stagnant, misty, glaucous dog-day air, i. e. blue mist, the smooth silvery surface of Fair Haven Pond. There is a singular charm about it in this setting. The surface has a dull, gleaming polish on it, though draped in this glaucous mist.
Photo: July 31, 2016: Squam Lake from Eagle Cliff, Sandwich, New Hampshire
Do not all flowers that blossom after mid-July remind us of the fall? After midsummer we have a belated feeling as if we had all been idlers––& are forward to see in each sight––& hear in each sound some presage of fall.–– just as in mid-age man anticipates the end of life.
Photo: July 30, 2019 on Montgomery Brook, Sandwich, New Hampshire
How attractive is color, especially red; kindred this with the color of fruits in the harvest and skies in the evening. The colors which some rather obscure leaves assume in the fall in dark copses or by the roadside, for the most part unobserved, interest me more than their flowers. There is also that plant with a lake or claret under side to its radical leaves in early spring. What is that?
July 29, 2023 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire
Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month––That the year was of indefinite promise before–– ––but that after the 1st intense heats we postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year––& having as it were attained the ridge of the summer––commenced to descend the long slope toward winter––the afternoon & down hill of the year–– Last evening it was much cooler––& I heard a decided fall sound of crickets––
Photo: July 28, 2017 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire
I should like to ask the assessors what is the value of that blue mountain range in the northwest horizon to Concord, and see if they would laugh or seriously set about calculating it. How poor, comparatively, should we be without it ! It would be descending to the scale of the merchant to say it is worth its weight in gold. The privilege of beholding it, as an ornament, a suggestion, a provocation, a heaven on earth. If I were one of the 5 fathers of the town I would not sell this right which we now enjoy for all the merely material wealth and prosperity conceivable. If need were, we would rather all go down together.
July 27, 2019 on Eagle Cliff, Sandwich, New Hampshire
By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.
Photo: July 26, 2016 on the Guinea Pond Trail, White Mountain National Forest, Sandwich, New Hampshire
This morning is all the more glorious for a white fog, which, though not universal, is still very extensive over all lowlands, some fifty feet high or more, though there was none at ten last night. There are white cobwebs on the grass. The battalions of the fog are continually on the move.
Photo: July 25, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH
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