the Thoreau Log.

16 December 1837. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  The woods were this morning covered with thin bars of vapor,—the evaporation of the leaves according to Sprengel,—which seemed to have been suddenly stiffened by the cold. In some places it was spread out like gauze over the tops of the trees, forming extended lawns, where elves and fairies held high tournament;

“before each van
Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears,
Till thickest legions close.”

The east was glowing with a narrow but ill-defined crescent of light, the blue of the zenith mingling in all possible proportions with the salmon-color of the horizon. And now the neighboring hilltops telegraph to us poor crawlers of the plain the Monarch’s golden ensign in the east, and anon his “long levelled rules” fall sectorwise, and the humblest cottage windows greet their lord.

(Journal, 1:17-18)