What is a chamber to which the sun does not rise in the morning? What is a chamber to which the sun does not set at evening? Such are often the chambers of the mind, for the most part.
from the journals of Henry David Thoreau
I listen to a concert of red-wings, — their rich sprayey notes, amid which a few more liquid and deep in a lower tone or undertone, as if it bubbled up from the very water beneath the button-bushes; as if those singers sat lower. Some old and skillful performer touches these deep and liquid notes, and the rest seem to get up a concert just to encourage him. Yet it is ever a prelude or essay with him, as are all good things, and the melody he is capable of and which we did not hear this time is what we remember. The future will draw him out. The different individuals sit singing and pluming themselves and not appearing to have any conversation with one another. They are only tuning all at once; they never seriously perform; the hour has not arrived. Then all go off with a hurried and perhaps alarmed tchuck tchuck.
from the journals of Henry David Thoreau
Walk along Swampscott Beach from Red Rock northeast. The beach is strewn with beautifully colored purple and whitish algve just left by the tide. Hear and see the seringo in fields next the shore. No noticeable yellow shoulder, pure whitish beneath, dashed throat and a dark-brown line of dashes along the sides of the body.
Struck inland and passed over the west end of High Rock, through the cemetery, and over Pine Hill, where I heard a strange warbler, methought, a dark-colored, perhaps reddish-headed bird. Thence through East Saugus and Saugus to Cliftondale, I think in the southern part of Saugus.
The little brown snake with the light line along the back just killed in the road.
from the journals of Henry David Thoreau
Approaching the Island, I hear the phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe, the sharp whistling note, of a fish hawk, and, looking round, see him just afterward launching away from one of the swamp white oaks southwest of the Island. There is about half a second between each note, and he utters them either while perched or while flying. He shows a great proportion of wing and some white on back. The wings are much curved. He sails along some eighty feet above the water’s edge, looking for fish, and alights again quite near. I see him an hour afterward about the same spot .
from the journals of Henry David Thoreau
He who requires fair weather puts off his enterprises and resumes them in his mind many times in the forenoon, as the clouds fall lower and sprinkle the fields, or lift higher and show light streaks. He goes half a mile and is over taken by thick sprinkling drops, falling faster and faster. He pauses and says to himself, this may be merely a shower, which will soon be over, or it may come to a steady rain and last all day. He goes a few steps further, thinking over the condition of a wet man, and then returns. Again it holds up and he regrets that he had not persevered; but the next hour it is stiller and darker, with mist beneath the investing cloud, and then commences a gentle, deliberate rain, which will probably last all day . So he puts on patience and the house.
from the journals of Henry David Thoreau
Hear the yellow redpoll sing on the maples below Dove Rock, — a peculiar though not very interesting strain, or jingle.
from the journals of Henry David Thoreau
Tree sparrows still. See a song sparrow getting its breakfast in the water on the meadow like a wader. Red maple yesterday, — an early one by further stone bridge. Balm-of-Gilead probably to-morrow. The black currant is just begun to expand leaf — probably yesterday elsewhere – a little earlier than the red. Though my hands are cold this morning I have not worn gloves for a few mornings past, — a week or ten days. The grass is now become rapidly green by the sides of the road, promising dandelions and buttercups.
from the journals of Henry David Thoreau
Mountain Living: Twenty Poems
by Han-shan Te-ch’ing
I
Down beneath the pines,
a few thatched huts.
Before my eyes,
everywhere blue mountains,
and where the sun and moon
restless rise and fall,
this old white cloud
idly comes and goes.
(translated by James Cryer in The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry edited by J.P Seaton)
Heard on the 14th a singular note on or near the hill, like a guinea-hen or other fowl, or a squeaking pump-handle. Heard [it] again this morning, and saw two large dark birds go off from a walnut with a loud squeaking quack. Is it a strange large woodpecker or possibly a teal? Heard the same at starlight, — ker-chuck ker-chuck ker-chuck. I think it is the red-wing only sings bobylee. Saw one pursuing a female(?). I am not sure whether these or the crow blackbirds are the earliest. Saw a small black-striped warbler or flycatcher (?) on a willow. Hear the long-drawn scold of a flicker, sounding very loud over the water.
from the journals of Henry David Thoreau
April 19. Haverhill. — Willow and bass strip freely. Surveying Charles White’s long piece. Hear again that same nighthawk-like sound over a meadow at evening.
from the journals of Henry David Thoreau
drafty mountain hut 