in Thoreau’s Journal:

Why was there never a poem on the cricket? Its creak seems to me to be one of the most prominent and obvious facts in the world, and the least heeded. In the report of a man’s contemplations I look to see somewhat answering to this sound.

The Cricket

By William Cowper (1731-1800)

Little inmate, full of mirth,

Chirping on my kitchen hearth,

Whereso’er be thine abode,

Always harbinger of good,

Pay me for thy warm retreat

With a song more soft and sweet;

In return thou shall receive

Such a strain as I can give. 

Thus thy praise shall be express’d,

Inoffensive, welcome guest!

While the rat is on the scout,

And the mouse with curious snout,

With what vermin else infest

Every dish, and spoil the best;

Frisking thus before the fire,

Thou hast all thine heart’s desire.

Though in voice and shape they be

Form’d as if akin to thee,

Thou surpassest, happier far,

Happiest grasshoppers that are;

Theirs is but a summer’s song,

Thine endures the winter long,

Unimpaired, and shrill, and clear,

Melody throughout the year.

Neither night nor dawn of day

Puts a period to thy play:

Sing, then — and extend thy span

Far beyond the date of man.

Wretched man, whose years are spent

In repining discontent,

Lives not, aged though he be,

Half a span, compared with thee.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Sometimes my thought rustles in midsummer as if ripe for the fall—  I anticipate the russet hues and the dry scent of autumn, as the feverish man dreams of balm and sage.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Great is the beauty of a wooded shore seen from the water, for the trees have ample room to expand on that side, and each puts forth its most vigorous bough to fringe and adorn the pond. It is rare that you see so natural an edge to the forest. Hence a pond like this, surrounded by hills wooded down to the edge of the water, is the best place to observe the tints of the autumnal foliage. Moreover, such as stand in or near to the water change earlier than elsewhere….How rich and autumnal the haze which blues the distant hills and fills the valleys. The lakes look better in this haze, which confines our view more to their reflected heavens and makes the shore-line more indistinct. Viewed from the hilltop, it reflects the color of the sky….Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, where the bottom is seen, it is a vivid green. I see two or three small maples already scarlet, across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three birches diverge next the water….They cannot fatally injure Walden with an axe, for they have done their worst and failed. We see things in the reflection which we do not see in the substance. In the reflected woods of Pine Hill there is a vista through which I see the sky, but I am indebted to the water for this advantage, for from this point the actual wood affords no such vista.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

We are most apt to remember and cherish the flowers which appear earliest in the spring.

I look with equal affection on those which are the latest to bloom in the fall.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The purple balls of the carrion-flower, now open a little beneath, standing out on all sides six or eight inches from the twining stem, are very handsome.

They are covered with a blue bloom, and when this is rubbed off by leaves, are a shining blackish.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is so cool a morning that for the first time I move into the entry to sit in the sun. But in this cooler weather I feel as if the fruit of my summer were hardening and maturing a little, acquiring color and flavor like the corn and other fruits in the field. When the very earliest ripe grapes begin to be scented in the cool nights, then, too, the first cooler airs of autumn begin to waft my sweetness on the desert airs of summer. Now, too, poets nib their pens afresh. I scent their first-fruits in the cool evening air of the year. By the coolness the experience of the summer is condensed and matured, whether our fruits be pumpkins or grapes. Man, too, ripens with the grapes and apples.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A  new moon visible in the east.  How unexpectedly it always appears!  You easily lose it in the sky…..

The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.

I omit the unusual –– the hurricanes and earthquakes –– and describe the common. This has the greatest charm and is the true theme of poetry. You may have the extraordinary for your province, if you will let me have the ordinary.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Would it not be well to describe some of those rough—all day walks across lots….

—-Picking our way over quaking meadows & swamps —& occasionally slipping into the muddy batter mid-leg deep—-jumping or fording ditches & brooks—forcing our way through dense blueberry swamps—-where there is water beneath & bushes above—then brushing through extensive birch forests all covered with green lice—which cover our clothes & face—then under larger wood relieved, more open beneath—-steering for some more conspicuous trunk Now along a rocky hill side where the sweet fern grows for a mile—then over a recent cutting—finding our uncertain footing on the cracking tops & trimmings of trees left by the choppers— Now taking a step or 2 of smooth walking across a high way— Now through a dense pine wood descending—into a rank dry swamp where the cinnamon fern rises above your head—with isles of poison dog wood— Now up a scraggy hill—covered with shrub oak—stooping & winding ones way—for half a mile—tearing ones clothes in many places & putting out ones eyes—& find at last that it has no bare brow but another slope of the same character— Now through a corn field diagonally with the rows—now coming upon the hidden melon patch seeing the back-side of familiar hills & not knowing them. The nearest house to home which you do not know—seeming further off—than the farthest which you do know— In the spring defiled with the froth on various bushes, &c &c &c— Now reaching on higher land some open—pigeon place—a breathing place for us.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A blue heron sails away from a pine at Holden Swamp shore and alights on the meadow above. Again he flies, and alights on the hard Conantum side, where at length I detect him standing far away stake-like (his body concealed), eying me and depending on his stronger vision.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Methinks the truly weather-wise will know themselves––& find the signs of rain in their own moods––the aspect of their own skies or thoughts & not consult swallows & spiders––  I incline always questions about the weather without thinking.  Does a mind in sympathy with nature need a hygrometer? 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The interregnum in the blossoming of flowers being well over, many small flowers blossom now in the low grounds, having just reached their summer. It is now dry enough, and they feel the heat their tenderness required.

The autumnal flowers, and johnswort, goldenrods, asters, though they have made demonstrations, have not yet commenced to reign.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Resolve to read no book––to take no walk––to undertake no enterprise but such as you can endure to give an account of to yourself. 

Live thus deliberately for the most part….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A still afternoon with a prospect of a shower in the west. The immediate edge of the river is for the most part respected by the mowers, and many wild plants there escape from year to year, being too coarse for hay. The prevailing flowers now along the river are the mikania, polygonums, trumpet-weed, cardinal, arrow- head, Chelone glabra [white turtlehead] and here and there vernonia. The button-bush is out of bloom and its balls browning.  On the steep hillside where the Leaning Hemlocks grow slanted over the river and from year to year falling into it, I am surprised to see that many are leaning and falling up the hill, owing to a slide which has carried their roots forward toward the water. I hear the muttering of thunder and the first drops dimple the river.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

There is some advantage, intellectually and spiritually, in taking wide views with the bodily eye and not pursing an occupation which holds the body prone. There is some advantage, perhaps, in attending to the general features of the landscape over studying the particular plants and animals which inhabit it.

A man may walk abroad and no more see the sky than if he walked under a shed. The poet is more in the air than the naturalist, though they may walk side by side. Granted that you are out-of-doors; but what if the outer door is open, if the inner door is shut! You must walk perfectly free, not prying nor inquisitive, not bent upon seeing things. Throw away a whole day for a single expansion, a single inspiration of air.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How copious and precise the botanical language to describe the leaves, as well as the other parts of a plant! Botany is worth studying if only for the precision of its terms, —to learn the value of words and of system.  It is wonderful how much pains has been taken to describe a flower’s leaf, compared for instance with the care that is taken in describing a psychological fact. Suppose as much ingenuity (perhaps it would be needless) in making a language to express the sentiments ! We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf in the field, or at least to distinguish it from each other, but not to describe a human character. With equally wonderful indistinctness and confusion we describe men. The precision and copiousness of botanical language applied to the description of moral qualities!

The neottia or ladies tresses behind Garfield’s house.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The grass in the high pastures is almost as dry as hay –– The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by & you not see it. How much of the year is spring & fall! How little can be called summer!  The grass is no sooner grown than it begins to wither. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now––as if the rest of the year were down hill & we had not performed anything before––we should not now––  The season of flowers or of promise may be said to be over & now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit? The night of the year is approaching, what have we done with our talent?

All nature prompts & reproves us–– How early in the year it begins to be late. The sound of the crickets even in the spring makes our hearts beat with its aweful reproof––while it encourages with its seasonable warning. It matters not by how little we have fallen behind––it seems irretrievably late. The year is full of warnings of its shortness––as is life––  The sound of so many insects & the sight of so many flowers affect us so–– The creak of the cricket & the sight of the Prunella & Autumnal dandelion.  They say––for the night cometh in which no man may work.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The High black-berries are now in their prime—the richest berry we have.

The wild black currant by Union Turnpike ripe—(in Gardens some time). The knapweed now conspicuous like a small thistle. Did I set it down too early? Rain Rain rain again! Good for grass & apples…

in Thoreaus Journal:

These are locust days. I hear them on the elms in the street—but cannot tell where they are—loud is their song—drowning many others—but men appear not to distinguish it—though it pervade their ears as the dust their eyes.

The river was exceedingly fair this afternoon—and there are few handsomer reaches than that by the leaning oak—the deep place, where the willows make a perfect shore…

I must look for the Rudbeckia which Bradford says he found yesterday behind Joe Clarks.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Elder-berry ripe.  The river was lowest early in July. Some time past I have noticed meadow-grass floating on the river, reminding me that they were getting the hay up the stream. Some naked viburnum berries are quite dark purple amid the red, while other bunches are wholly green yet. The red choke-berry is small and green still. I plainly distinguish it, also, by its woolly under side. In E. Hubbard’s swamp I gather some large and juicy and agreeable rum cherries. The birds make much account of them. They are much finer than the small ones on large trees; quite a good fruit. Some cranberries turned red on one cheek along the edges of the meadows. Now a sudden gust of wind blows from the northwest, cooled by a storm there, blowing the dust from roads far over the fields. The whole air, indeed, is suddenly filled with dust, and the outlines of the clouds are concealed. But it proves only the wind of the ball, which apparently passes north of us. That clear ring like an alder locust (is it a cricket ?) for some time past is a sound which belongs to the season, —autumnal.  Here is a second crop of clover almost as red as the first. The swamp blackberry begins. Saw a blue heron on the meadow. Aster amplexicaulis of Bigelow, apparently; probably for a day or two. An orchis by the brook under the Cliffs with only three white flowers, only smaller than the fringed white; spurs half an inch long. May it be another species?