in Thoreau’s Journal:

To Conantum. –to see the lilies open– I hear an occasional crowing of cocks in distant barns as has been their habit for how many thousand years. It was so when I was young; and it will be so when I am old- I hear the croak of a tree toad as I am crossing the yard– I am surprised to find the dawn so far advanced. There is a yellowish segment of light in the east paling a star–& adding sensibility to the light of the waning & now declining moon. There is very little dew on the uplands. I hear a little twittering & some clear singing from the seringo & the song sparrow– as I go along the Back Road–and now and then the note of the bull frog from the river– The light in the east has acquired a reddish tinge near the horizon Small wisps of cloud are already fuscous & dark seen against the light as in the W at evening. It being Sunday morning I hear no early stirring farmer driving over a bridge– The crickets are not remarkably loud at this season– The sound of a whippoorwill is wafted from the woods– Now on the Corner Road the hedges are alive with twittering sparrows–a blue bird or two &c. The day light now balances the moonlight. How short the nights. The last traces of day have not disappeared much before 10 o’clock or perchance 9 1/2 and before 3 Am you see them again in the East. (probably 2 1/2) leaving about 5 hours of solid night– The sun so soon coming around again. The robins sing–but not so loud & long as in the spring– I have not been awakened by them latterly in the mornings– Is it my fault–ah! those mornings when you are awakened in the dawn by the singing of the Matins of the birds. I hear the dumping sound of frogs now on the causeway. Some small clouds in the east are reddish fuscous. There is no fog on the river nor in the meadows. The king-bird twitters? on the Black willows. Methinks I saw the not yet extinguished lights of one or two fireflies in the darker ruts in the grass in Conant’s meadow. The moon yields to the sun–she pales even in the presence of his dawn. It is chiefly the spring birds that I hear at this hour—& in dawn the spring is thus revived–– The notes of the sparrows & the blue-birds & the robin have a prominence now which they have not by day The light is more & more general & some low bands begin to look bluish as well as reddish. (Elsewhere the sky wholly clear of clouds) The dawn is at this stage far lighter than the brightest moonlight–– I write by it––yet the sun will not rise for some time. Those bars are reddening more above one spot. They grow purplish or lilac rather. White & whiter grows the light in the eastern sky–– (And now descending to the cliff by the river side I cannot see the low horizon & its phenomena) I love to go through these old apple orchards so irregularly set out. Sometimes two trees standing alone together– The rows of grafted fruit will never tempt me to wander amid them like these. A bittern leaves the shore at my approach–– I suppose it is he whose excrement has whitened the rocks–as if a mason had spilled his whitewash–– A night hawk squeaks & booms– before sunrise. The insects shaped like shad flies (some which I see are larger & yellowish) begin to leave their cases (and selves?) on the stems of the grasses & the rushes in the water. I find them so weak they can hardly hold on. I hear the blackbirds carqueree & the king-fisher darts away with his alarum– and outstretched neck. Every lily is shut Sunrise––I see it gilden the top of the hill behind me but the sun itself is concealed by the hills & woods on the E shore…

July 4, 2017 Photo