in Thoreau’s Journal:

The grass & in the fields and meadows is not so fresh & fair as it was a fortnight ago––it is drier & riper & ready for the mowers –– Now June is past. June is the month for grass & flowers  ––  Now grass is turning to hay & flowers to fruits. Already I gather ripe blueberries on the hills. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The progress of the season is indescribable…Perhaps the sound of the locust expresses the season as well as anything.  The farmers say the abundance of the grass depends on wet in June. I might make a separate season of those days when the locust is heard.  That is our torrid zone.

Some birds are poets & sing all summer–they are the true singers–  Any man can write verses during the love season–

How fitting to have every day in a vase of water on your table the wild flowers of the season–which are just blossoming–can any house said to be furnished without them?…. So may the season suggest the fine thoughts it is fitted to suggest.

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. A very slight fog begins to rise now in one place on the river. There is something serenely glorious & memorable to me in the sight of the first cool sun light now gilding the eastern extremity of the bushy island in Fair Haven that wild lake––the subdued light––& the repose remind me of Hades. In such sunlight there is no fairer––it is such an innocent pale yellow as the spring flowers    It is the pollen of the sun––fertilizing plants. The color of the earliest spring flowers is as cool and innocent as the first rays of the sun in the morning falling on woods & hills. The fog not only rises upward (about 2 feet) but at once there is a motion from the sun over the surface––   What means this endless motion of water bugs collected in little groups on the surface––and ceaselessly circling about their centre––(as if they were a family hatched from the eggs on the under side of a pad.) Is not this motion intended partly to balk the fishes? Methinks they did not begin to move till sun rise––where were they? And now I see an army of skaters advancing in loose array––of chasseurs––or scouts as Indian allies are drawn in old books––   Now the rays of the sun have reached my seat a few feet above the water––flies begin to buzz––mosquitoes to be less troublesome   A humming bird hums by over the pads up the river as if looking like myself to see if lilies have blossomed (The birds begin to sing generally––& if not loudest at least most noticeably on account of the quietness of the hour––just before a few minutes before sun rise  ––  They do not sing so incessantly & earnestly as a regular thing half an hour later). Carefully looking both up & down the river I could perceive that the lilies began to open about 15 minutes after the sun from over the opposite bank fell on them––which was perhaps 3/4 of an hour after sun rise which is about 4 1/2) and one was fully expanded about 20 minutes later––  When I returned over the bridge about 6 1/4 there were perhaps a dozen open ones in sight. It was very difficult to find one not injured by insects––even the buds which were just about the expand were frequently bored quite through––and the water had rotted them. You must be on hand early to anticipate insects.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The last sunrise I witnessed seems to outshine the splendor of all preceding ones, and I was convinced that it behoved man to dawn as freshly, and with equal promise and steadiness advance into the career of life, with as lofty and serene a countenance to move onward through his midday to a yet fairer and more promising setting….

We will have a dawn––and noon––and serene sunset in ourselves.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

What a relief and expansion of my thoughts when I come out from that inland position by the grave yard to this broad river’s shore!….It is equal to a different season and country and creates a different mood…This current allies me to all the world.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A cloudy and slightly showery morning––following a thundershower the previous afternoon. One object to see the white lilies in blossom. The trillium arvense or rabbits Foot Clover is just beginning to show its color––& in the same state is the ( I think) Lysimachia stricta or upright Loosestrife? by the Back Road. The mullein generally now begin to show their pure yellow in roadside fields––and the white cymes of the elder are conspicuous on the edges of the copses. I perceive the meadow fragrance still–– From the bridge I see a bream’s nest in soft sand on the edge of deeper water––scooped out quite deep with very sharp edges sloping both ways. Some peeweets which probably have eggs in Conants cornfield make a great ado twittering & circling about the dog. The path by the woods is red with the effoete staminiferous flowers of the white pine It is more agreeable walking this cloudy day with a few harmless sun showers––than it would be in a glaring sunny day–– It is pleasant to behold so much of the landscape in the shadow of the clouds.–– especially to look off from the top of conantum under shady walnut boughs to larger shades in the vallies––all Nine acre corner in the cool & shade of a cloud.

Roses are in their prime now––growing amid huckleberry bushes ferns––& sweet ferns––especially about some dry pond hole––some paler some more red. Methinks they must have bloomed in vain while only wild men roamed––

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all––that is her scenes must be associated with humane affections––such as are associated with ones native place for instance.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

One flower on a spike of the Pontederia cordata just ready to expand.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The rubus odoratus purple flowering raspberry in gardens––

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Our hour is a sabbath––our abode a temple––our gifts peace offerings––our conversation a communion––our silence a prayer.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I have not put darkness duskiness enough into my night & moonlight walks––every sentence should contain some twilight or night–– At least the light in it should be the yellow or creamy light of the moon ––or the fine beams of stars & not the white light of day.  The peculiar dusty serenity of the sentences must not allow the reader to forget that it is evening or night, without my saying that it is dark. Otherwise he will of course presume a daylight atmosphere.

The earliest water surfaces as I remember––as soon as the ice is melted present as fair & matured scenes––as soft & warm reflecting the sky through the clear atmosphere––as in midsummer––far in advance of the earth. The earliest promise of the summer––is it not in the smooth reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the ice is just melted? The liquid eyes of nature––blue or black or even hazel.  Deep or shallow––clear or turbid.  Green next the shore the color of their iris.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

P.M. To Assabet bathing place. Found an unusual quantity of Amelanchier berries. I think of the two common kinds, one a taller bush twice as high as my head, with thinner and lighter colored leaves, and larger, or at least somewhat softer, fruit, the other, a shorter bush, with more rigid and darker leaves, and dark blue berries, with often a sort of wooliness on them. Both these are now in their prime. These are the first berries after strawberries, or the first and, I think, the sweetest bush berries, somewhat like high blueberries, but not so hard.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

A sky without clouds is a meadow without flowers, a sea without sails.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The pretty little Mitchella repens with its twin flowers spots the ground under the pines with its downy petalled cross shaped flowers & its purplish buds.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Listen in every zephyr for some reproof.  It is the sweetest strain of the music. Its satire trembles round the world. We cannot touch a string––awake a sound but it reproves us….

Not a music to dance to, but to live by.

in Thoreau’s Journal: 

Nature has looked uncommonly bare & dry to me for a day or two. With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical & corresponding moral revolutions. Nature was so shallow all at once I did not know what had attracted me all my life.

I was therefore encouraged when going through a field this evening, I was unexpectedly struck with the beauty of an apple tree –– the perception of beauty is a moral test…

in Thoreau’s Journal:

And then for my afternoon walks I have a garden––larger than any artificial garden that I have read of––and far more attractive to me, mile after mile of embowered walks, with animals running free & wild therein as from the first––varied with land & water prospect––and above all so retired that it is extremely rare that you meet a single wanderer in its maze –– 

No gardener is see therein no gates nor… You may wander away to solitary bowers & brooks & hills….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Green early blue-berries on hill sides passim remind you of the time when berries will be ripe. This is the ante-huckleberry season–when fruits are green.

Maybe the huckleberry- bird best expresses the season, or the red-eye.

What subtle differences between one season and another! The warmest weather has, perchance, arrived and the longest days, but not the driest. When I remember gathering ripe blackberries on sandy fields or stones by the roadside, the very berries warmed by the sun, I am convinced of this. The seasons admit of infinite degrees in their revolutions.

Found one of the purple orchises in an open meadow.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Methinks I saw & heard goldfinches.  Pyrolas are beginning to blossom. The four-leaved loose strife. The longest days in the year have now come.