Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/49

Rh White clover out probably some days; also red, as long It has just cleared off after this first rain of consequence for a long time, and now I observe the shadows of massive clouds still floating here and there in the peculiarly blue sky. These dark shadows on field and wood are the more remarkable by contrast to the light, yellow-green foliage, and where they rest on evergreens, they are doubly dark, like dark rings about the eyes of June. Great white-bosomed clouds, darker beneath, float through the clearest sky, and are seen against its delicious blue, such a sky as we have not had before. This is after the first important rain at this season. The song of birds is more lively and seems to have a new character; a new season has commenced. In the woods I hear the tanager, the chewink, and the redeye. It is fairly summer, and mosquitoes begin to sting in earnest There are now many potentillas ascendant, and the Erigeron bellidifolium I see sixteen inches high and quite handsome Now the crimson velvety leaves of the black oak, showing also a crimson edge on the downy undersides, are beautiful as a flower, and the more salmon-colored white oak.

The Linnæa borealis has grown an inch, but are not the flowers winter-killed? I see dead and blackened flower-buds. Perhaps it should have opened before.