Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/333

Rh as reddish. Elsewhere the sky is 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 and whiter grows the light in the eastern sky. And now descending to the Cliff by the river side, I cannot see the low horizon and its phenomena.

I love to go through these old apple orchards so irregularly set out, sometimes two trees standing close together. The rows of grafted fruit will never tempt me to wander amid them like these. A bittern leaves the shore at my approach. A night-hawk squeaks and booms before sunrise. I hear the blackbird's conqueree, and the kingfisher darts away with his alarum and outstretched neck. Every lily is shut. Sunrise. I see it gilding the top of the hill behind me, but the sun itself is concealed by the hills and woods on the east shore. A very slight fog begins to rise now in one place on the river. There is something serenely glorious and memorable to me in the sight of the first cool sunlight now gilding the eastern extremity of the bushy island in Fair Haven, that wild lake. The subdued light and the repose remind me of Hades. In such sunlight there