Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/87

Rh June 9, 1851. Gathered the Linnæa borealis.

June 9, 1852. The buck-bean in Hubbard's meadow just going out of blossom. The yellow water ranunculus is an important flower in the river now, rising above the white lily pads, whose flower does not yet appear. I perceive that their petals washed ashore, line the sand conspicuously.

For a week past we have had washing days. The grass is waving, and the trees having leaved out, their boughs feel the effect of the breeze. Thus new life and motion is imparted to the trees. The season of waving boughs, and the lighter under-sides of the new leaves are exposed. This is the first half of June. Already the grass is not so fresh and liquid velvety a green, having much of it blossomed, and some even gone to seed, and it is mixed with reddish ferns and other plants, but the general leafiness, shadiness, and waving of grass and boughs characterize the season. The wind is not quite agreeable, because it prevents your hearing the birds sing. Meanwhile the crickets are strengthening their choir. The weather is very clear, and the sky bright. The river shines like silver. Methinks this is a traveler's month. The locust in bloom. The undulating rye. The deciduous trees have filled up the intervals between the evergreens, and the woods are bosky now.