in Thoreau’s Journal:

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