5.16.2005

Thoreau's Journal: 16-May-1858

A hummingbird yesterday came into the next house and was caught. Flew about our parlor to-day and tasted Sophia’s flowers. In some lights you saw none of the colors of its throat. In others, in the shade the throat was clear bright scarlet, but in the sun it glowed with splendid metallic, fiery reflections about the neck and throat. It uttered from time to time, as it flew, a faint squeaking chirp or chirrup. The hum sounded more hollow when it approached a flower. Its wings fanned the air so forcibly that you felt the cool wind they raised a foot off, and nearer it was very remarkable. Does not this very motion of the wings keep a bird cool in hot weather?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

who was sophia?

son rivers said...

Henry's sister.

Jack Saturday said...

I was beside the master craftsman,
delighting him day after day,
ever at play in his presence,
at play everywhere on his earth,
delighting to be with the children of humanity.
And now, my children, listen to me
Happy are those who keep my ways.
--Sophia (Wisdom),
Proverbs 8