Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/163

Rh autumnal, methinks, are the fruit of the dog days, heats of manhood or age, not youth. The former are pure, transparent, crystalline, viz., the willow catkins and the early cinquefoils. This ranunculus, too, standing two or three inches above the water, is of a light yellow, especially at a distance. This I think is the rule with respect to spring flowers, though there are exceptions.

9 Down railroad. Heat lightning in the distance; a sultry night. The sound of a flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening!—Have not the fire-flies in the meadow relation to the stars above, étincelant. When the darkness comes we see stars beneath also.—The sonorous note of the bull-frog is heard a mile off in the river, the loudest sound this evening. Ever and anon the sound of his trombone comes over the meadows and fields.

Do not the stars, too, show their light for love, like the fire-flies? There are northern lights, shooting high up, withal.

June 16, 1853. 4 To Nashawtuck, by boat. Before 4 or sunrise, the sound of chip-birds, robins, blue-birds, etc., is incessant. It is a crowing on the roost, I fancy, as the cock crows before he goes abroad. They do not sing deliberately as at evening, but greet the morning